The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

The stunning new novel from a sparkling comic writer who is on the brink of stardom.Poor Alice Thrift: book-smart but people-hopeless. Alice graduated second in her class at medical school, but hospital life is proving quite a challenge. Evaluations describe her performance as 'workmanlike' and her people skills as 'hypothermic'. Luckily, Alice's roommate Leo, the most popular nurse at the hospital, and her feisty neighbour Sylvie, take on the task of guiding Alice through the narrow straits of her own no-rapport zone.When Ray Russo, a social-climbing fudge salesman, dedicates himself to a romantic pursuit, Leo and Sylvie harbour serious doubts. Yet as the chase intensifies, Alice's bedside manner begins to thaw. Can this dubious character be the one to lift Alice out of the depths of her social ineptitude Written with bite, pace and effortless wit, this seriously funny novel puts romance under the microscope with hilarious consequences.

Literature & Fiction

Elinor Lipman

Contemporary

Harper-perennial

The Inn at Lake Devine (Vintage Contemporaries)

Vintage

When Harriet Mahoney first saw it, Isabel Krug's bed was covered in sheared sheep and littered with celebrity biographies. The unpublished, fortyish, and recently jilted Harriet had fled wintry Manhattan in response to a mysterious ad in The New York Review of Books: "Book in progress? Why not share my Cape Cod retreat? Roomy and peaceful - your life will be your own." In a room with a view atop a Truro dune, Harriet starts on a different path to fulfillment by ghostwriting The Isabel Krug Story, based on the sexy blonde's tabloid past - specifically, a nasty night in Greenwich, Connecticut, when Guy VanVleet died and Isabel (giving new meaning to the notion of femme fatale) lived to tell about it on Court TV. Unusually talented in the man department ("I give lessons"), Isabel revamps and inspires Harriet as they gear up to tell all, including the tangled history Isabel shares with her odd lodger, an artist called Costas. Life according to Isabel is a soap-opera extravaganza, an experience to be swallowed whole - and the attitude is catching. Soon, memories of Harriet's bagel-baking ex-boyfriend pale next to the attentions of a gentle man who has the grace to appreciate in Harriet what other men have failed to see. After a few New York adventures, when the mysteries of Isabel are solved and her louder-than-life story is written, Harriet begins her own free fall into happiness.... Witty, sage, and compassionate, filled with zany and endearing characters, Isabel's Bed joins the stellar company of Elinor Lipman's unforgettable fiction.

ISABEL'S BED

United States

Atria Books

Isabel's Bed

Washington Square Pr

A hysterical phone call from Henry Archer's ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend his well ordered life and bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old fashioned man, gay, successful, and lonely. Thalia is now 28, a hopeful actress, estranged from her newly widowed crackpot mother--Denise, Henry's ex. Hoping it will lead to better things for her career, Thalia agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a former child star and current horror movie luminary who is down on his romantic luck. When Thalia and her complicated social life move into the basement of Henry's Upper West Side townhouse, she finds a champion in her long lost father, and he finds new life--and maybe even new love--in the commotion.

The Family Man

Houghton/Mifflin

Romance

Headline/Review

Then She Found Me

The Ladies' Man

BBC Audiobooks

A hysterical phone call from Henry Archer's ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend his well ordered life and bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old fashioned man, gay, successful, and lonely. Thalia is now 28, a hopeful actress, estranged from her newly widowed crackpot mother-Denise, Henry's ex. Hoping it will lead to better things for her career, Thalia agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a former child star and current horror movie luminary who is down on his romantic luck. When Thalia and her complicated social life move into the basement of Henry's Upper West Side townhouse, she finds a champion in her long lost father, and he finds new life-and maybe even new love-in the commotion.

Humor & Satire

Blackstone Pub

Blackstone Audiobooks

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Books by Elinor Lipman