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Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Authors A-Z : L : Lipman, Elinor
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When Nash Harvey, incurable womaniser and failing jingle composer, arrives at the Boston home of the Dobbin sisters, he is struck with a casserole dish. Not surprising, considering that Nash, one-time fiancé of Adele Dobbin, disappeared on the night of their engagement party 30 years before.Fresh from a failed romance with a Californian reflexologist, Nash brings chaos to the Dobbins, all of whom have settled into a weary spinsterhood. Unintentionally, he leads everyone he meets to a truer knowledge of themselves and the possibilities of a brighter future. Five distinct but masterfully interwoven tales of the heart spin around the central, hilariously desperate mission of Nash, a man seeking to escape the inescapable.
Lipman writes with the wry authority of a latter-day Jane Austen or Henry James. Her work ripples with startling segues into the perversities of male-female relationships. Yet for all this insight, her characters are drawn with companionable warmth. This is not a book about the bold and the beautiful. Her cast inhabits a twilight of TV dinners, greying hair and disastrous dates, yet they never lose their hope or their capacity for love. A gourmet casserole of a book--drama, humour and understanding in equally generous portions. --Matthew Baylis
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Elinor Lipman's The Dearly Departed opens with amateur actress Margaret Batten and her lover Miles Finn being found dead in Margaret's ramshackle grey bungalow. All of King George, New Hampshire, is abuzz but is it foul play? (No, carbon monoxide poisoning.) Were they engaged? (Yes, if you believe the cleaning lady.) And why do Margaret's daughter Sunny and Miles's son Fletcher have the same kind of wispy, shiny, prematurely grey hair? (They're brother and sister, or so suggests Fletcher, annoyingly and at length.) Meeting one's possible half-brother for the first time is jolting enough. But for Sunny Batten, the shock is compounded by finding out that her shy, sweet-faced mother was evidently not the "little mouse"--or even the "late bloomer"--Sunny had always assumed her to be. In other words, when the eulogists praise Margaret's vaunted generosity and her "open door", they aren't necessarily talking about the time she asked the Girl Scouts in for a glass of lemonade.But then King George is full of surprises. Home for the first time since high school, Sunny finds herself reassessing the place. She has ample reason to regret her teenage years (poor, no father, only girl on golf team, dead carp found in golf bag). But how far can a grudge take you in life? Can we ever really know the truth about our parents? What state of mind does it take to shoot par? Lipman addresses such questions with her customary lighthearted touch, sketching out her ensemble cast with rapid and comical strokes. (Witness, for example, anorexic congressional candidate Emily Ann Grandjean's most characteristic tic: "constant sips from a large bottle of brand-name water, then the ceremonial screwing of its cap back on once, twice, full-body twists as if volatile and poisonous gases would escape without her intervention." ) In the end, all loose ends are neatly tied up and all single characters are suitably paired--in other words, the author once again produces the kind of visceral satisfaction readers associate with her work. It's hard not to devour an Elinor Lipman novel in one sitting; put this one away for a time when you won't have to put it down. --Mary Park, Amazon.com
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Elinor Lipman's The Dearly Departed opens with amateur actress Margaret Batten and her lover Miles Finn being found dead in Margaret's ramshackle grey bungalow. All of King George, New Hampshire, is abuzz but is it foul play? (No, carbon monoxide poisoning.) Were they engaged? (Yes, if you believe the cleaning lady.) And why do Margaret's daughter Sunny and Miles's son Fletcher have the same kind of wispy, shiny, prematurely grey hair? (They're brother and sister, or so suggests Fletcher, annoyingly and at length.) Meeting one's possible half-brother for the first time is jolting enough. But for Sunny Batten, the shock is compounded by finding out that her shy, sweet-faced mother was evidently not the "little mouse"--or even the "late bloomer"--Sunny had always assumed her to be. In other words, when the eulogists praise Margaret's vaunted generosity and her "open door", they aren't necessarily talking about the time she asked the Girl Scouts in for a glass of lemonade.But then King George is full of surprises. Home for the first time since high school, Sunny finds herself reassessing the place. She has ample reason to regret her teenage years (poor, no father, only girl on golf team, dead carp found in golf bag). But how far can a grudge take you in life? Can we ever really know the truth about our parents? What state of mind does it take to shoot par? Lipman addresses such questions with her customary lighthearted touch, sketching out her ensemble cast with rapid and comical strokes. (Witness, for example, anorexic congressional candidate Emily Ann Grandjean's most characteristic tic: "constant sips from a large bottle of brand-name water, then the ceremonial screwing of its cap back on once, twice, full-body twists as if volatile and poisonous gases would escape without her intervention." ) In the end, all loose ends are neatly tied up and all single characters are suitably paired--in other words, the author once again produces the kind of visceral satisfaction readers associate with her work. It's hard not to devour an Elinor Lipman novel in one sitting; put this one away for a time when you won't have to put it down. --Mary Park, Amazon.com
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When Nash Harvey, incurable womaniser and failing jingle composer, arrives at the Boston home of the Dobbin sisters, he is struck with a casserole dish. Not surprising, considering that Nash, onetime fiancé of Adele Dobbin, disappeared on the night of their engagement party, 30 years ago.Fresh from a failed romance with a Californian reflexologist, Nash brings chaos to the Dobbins, all of whom have settled into a weary spinsterhood. Unintentionally, he leads everyone he meets to a truer knowledge of themselves, and the possibilities of a brighter future. Five distinct, but masterfully interwoven tales of the heart spin around the central, hilariously desperate mission of Nash, a man seeking to escape the inescapable.
Lipman writes with the wry authority of a latter-day Jane Austen or Henry James. Her work ripples with startling segues into the perversities of male-female relationships. Yet for all this insight, her characters are drawn with companionable warmth. This is not a book about the bold and the beautiful. Her cast inhabits a twilight of TV dinners, greying hair and disastrous dates, yet they never lose their hope, or their capacity for love. A gourmet casserole of a book--drama, humour and understanding in equally generous portions. -- Matthew Baylis
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