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Loading... My Latest Grievanceby Elinor Lipman
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Just like the Lipman story I read before this one, "light reading" is probably a good overall categorization. You won't lie awake at night reflecting on your life and the meaning of existence after reading this book, but it does make a relaxing break between "serious" novels. I liked the characterization of the parents - people who take everything seriously and treat their teenage daughter as though she was an intelligent adult peer. People (like me) who were younger adults in the 1970s will laugh at themselves as they recall their own experience of protests, encounter groups, and similar "dated" beliefs and practices. The ending of the book was rather a disappointment to me, because it is *so* contrary to my own experience of the way the world works (  )oldblack | Jul 6, 2009 |   This is the first book I have read by this prolific author, and it has has turned out to be a resounding success. I'm often not amused by supposedly humorous writing, but [My Latest Grievance] is utterly hilarious. Much of the charm of this novel also goes to the BBC Audiobook narrator Mia Barron who does each character's voice perfectly in harmony with their individual personalities. The funniest character of the book is clueless Laura Lee French who comes to Dewing College for a job as a housemother but seems to intrude in the lives of others in a most adverse way. Her ex-husband David Hatch, David's current wife Aviva, and their sixteen-year-old daughter Fredericka play interference in an attempt to lessen the ruckus caused by Miss French. The author's very tight and intelligent writing makes this book a superb and delightful read. (  )SqueakyChu | May 18, 2009 | It's been a while since I read a book that so thoroughly engaged me. EL does wry, gentle wit like no one else. This particular book, more so than the three others of hers that I have read, manages to sweep a collection of dotty characters into a storyline that compels the reader forward - but as always it's the narrating voice that really carries it. One off-topic note: my book club, soccer moms all, found the parents unsympathetic. I thought this was interesting. I doubt EL intended them that way. I sometimes forget how steadfastly we suburban housewives devote ourselves to our children...to the extent that career passion is viewed as potentially selfish. I'm not saying we're right and I'm not saying we're wrong - it's just an interesting (and kind of rare) instance of a disconnect between author intent and reader reception. (  )swl | May 3, 2008 | This is one of the most witty, entertaining novels I have read in a while. Told through the memories of the main character, Frederica Hatch, the story's setting is the campus of a New England all girls college. Frederica was born and raised on the campus, both of her parents professors and house "mothers". She lived in a dorm and was the darling of the campus. At sixteen, she discovered a family secret: her father, David, had been married before to his second cousin, fell in love with his current wife, Aviva (Frederica's mother), and divorced his first wife, Laura Lee. The discovery peaked Frederica's curiosity, and she soon met Laura Lee when the estranged ex-wife showed up on campus to fill the position of house mother in another dorm. From the time Laura Lee arrived, havoc ensued. After an illicit affair between the married college president and Laura Lee, the president's wife attempted suicide but ended up with a child's brain. What follows brought down the president and almost brought down the Hatches and the college in the process. Frederica's upbringing by socialist parents whose beliefs in equality made their daughter precocious and provided her with a sense of the world that all should be fair. She is at once loving, caring, and manipulative, but never for the wrong reasons. A wonderful string of characters fill this book, and all are endearing in their own ways. The story is told so well that you forget that it's all Elinor Lipman. Carlie | Feb 4, 2008 | This book rather meandered along with practically no purpose until finally it ended. The narrator was more than a little irritating. This is another book that I would not have finished reading, but as a captive audio audience, I did manage to make it through, although just barely at points. (  )23eris | Jan 11, 2008 | 0.022 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0618644652, Hardcover)"Almost nobody writes serious entertainment with more panache" than Elinor Lipman, wrote the Chicago Tribune. From her debut novel, Then She Found Me, which in the words of the Washington Post revived the art of "screwball comedy for the newly dawned nineties," to her most recent, best-selling The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, which the Philadelphia Weekly hailed as "the most perfect piece of prose writing to come along in quite a while," Elinor Lipman has set the gold standard by which other comic novelists are judged.Now her pitch-perfect new novel, set in 1978, introduces us to the beguiling Frederica Hatch. Born and raised in the dormitory of a small women's college, and chafing under the care of "the most annoyingly evenhanded parental team in the history of civilization," Frederica is starting to feel that her life is stiflingly snug. "I had no intention of blending in. I wanted to be who I'd become, the Eloise of Dewing College, the full-time residential expert in an institution that others occupied only fleetingly." Into this cozy world comes Miss Laura Lee French — a wannabe former Rockette and the new dorm mother at the college where Frederica's parents teach and live. Laura Lee proves to be the enthralling and glamorous antithesis of the Hatches, whose passion for liberal political causes is all-consuming — even Frederica's Barbie dolls have been anatomically corrected. As Frederica says, "The timing was excellent . . . Just as I was craving more attention, along came Laura Lee French, dorm mother without a day job, single, childless, and ultimately famous within our gates." "Like an inspired alchemist" (New York Times Book Review), Lipman turns this seemingly routine faculty hire into a catalyst for havoc and hilarity. For it happens that Miss French — in the distant past — was married to none other than Frederica's earnest and distinctly unglamorous father. As in her previous novels, Lipman writes "in a delicious style that is both funny and elegant" (USA Today), rendering serious subjects "through a lens of humor and hope" (Boston Globe). The results? Vintage Elinor Lipman — delightful, memorable, and touching. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:02 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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