Apr 29 2007 07:23 PM
I guess book threads go here until further notice.
Eleanor Lipman writes perfectly ordinary books about New England folks intersecting each other's lives, but with a touch --- letting you into every character's embarassing self-delusions --- that's extraordinary. She's like Jane Austen in that, except she doesn't have such a clear point, like getting heroines into happy marriages or something. She's great reading. This one is set amid the non-adventures of a pair of half-siblings who first discover their relationship at the funeral of their mutual father, who died his longtime paramour and the beloved mother of one of the siblings. The whole town is charmingly supportive and simultaneously awful, again like an Austenian town.
Read it now and let me know what you think. I'll also suggest her book, Ladies Man.