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“Almost no one writes serious entertainment with an increase of panache” than Elinor Lipman, composed the Chicago Tribune. From her debut book, Then She Found Me personally, which in what of the Washington Post revived the fine art of “screwball humor for the recently dawned nineties,” to her latest, best-selling The Quest for Alice Thrift, which the Philadelphia Weekly hailed as “the most perfect little bit of prose writing to come along in quite a while,” Elinor Lipman has placed the precious metal standard by which other comic novelists are judged.
Now her pitch-perfect new book, occur 1978, introduces us to the beguiling Frederica Hatch. Blessed and increased in the dormitory of a tiny women’s school, and chafing under the attention of “the most annoyingly evenhanded parental team in the history of civilization,” Frederica is needs to believe that her life is stiflingly snug. “I had formed no intent of mixing in. I needed to be who I’d become, the Eloise of Dewing College, the full-time residential expert within an organization that others occupied only fleetingly.”
Into this comfortable world comes Pass up Laura Lee France — a wannabe ex - Rockette and the new dorm mother at the school where Frederica’s parents instruct and live. Laura Lee proves to be the enthralling and attractive antithesis of the Hatches, whose passion for liberal political triggers is all-consuming — even Frederica’s Barbie dolls have been anatomically corrected. As Frederica says, “The timing was excellent . . . Just like I had been craving more attention, along came up Laura Lee France, dorm mother with out a day job, sole, childless, and finally famous in your gates.”
“As an motivated alchemist” (New York Times Reserve Review), Lipman changes this seemingly tedious faculty hire into a catalyst for havoc and hilarity. For it happens that Pass up France — in the faraway past — was wedded to none other than Frederica’s earnest and distinctly unglamorous dad.
As in her prior novels, Lipman writes “in a scrumptious style that is both funny and fashionable” (USA Today), rendering serious things “by having a lens of humor and anticipation” (Boston Globe). The results? Retro Elinor Lipman — delightful, memorable, and touching.
