The Dearly Departed
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Average rating5
15
Ratings1
Average rating5
With her trademark humor and warmth, the beloved author of The Ladies' Man and The Inn at Lake Devine explores going home again; about finding light in the dark corners of one's inhospitable past; about love, golf, and DNA. Everyone in King George, New Hampshire, loved Margaret Batten, part-time amateur actress, full-time wallflower, and single mother to a now-distant daughter, Sunny. But accidents happen. The death of Margaret, side by side with her putative fiance, brings Sunny back to the scene of the unhappy adolescence she thought she'd left behind. Reentry is to be dreaded; there's no hiding in a town with one diner, one doctor, one stop sign, one motel. Yet allies surface; even high school tormentors have grown up in unforeseen and gratifying ways. Just possibly, Sunny begins to think, she wasn't as beleaguered as she felt she was. And maybe her mother's life was richer than anyone suspected. Add to the mix a chief of police whose interest in Sunny exceeds his civic duty, and you have the makings of an irresistibly beguiling tale from an author who writes with all the wit and wry authority of a latter-day Jane Austen.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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This may be my favorite [a:Elinor Lipman 63681 Elinor Lipman https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1482327276p2/63681.jpg] novel so far. Maybe I'm just morbid, but having it start with two accidental deaths and uncovering the secrets of the deceased lives post mortem intrigued me. Sunny lost her mother, Fletcher lost his father, and one of them lost both. (No spoilers.) It all happens in a little burg named King George, NH, where everyone knows everyone's business. I think one of the interesting aspects of the novel was how much baggage Sunny carried from high school even at 31. Maybe returning to her home town brought it all back but I think we all have those vague tendencies. Once in grammar school, someone says you have a big nose, and you still remember that when you turn 80. In Sunny's case, she was an excellent golfer who made the guys' varsity team in high school. However, as the first female ever on the team, not to mention the best golfer on the team, she took a lot of flack for trying to be part of the team.Insecurities abound in this story. The local doctor has them, a political candidate has them, her campaign manager has them, and even the chief of police is riddled with self-doubt. Seeing all those neuroses connected by a dead man and woman is the fun of the plot. Lipman really turned on her storytelling chops to write [b:The Dearly Departed 459337 The Dearly Departed Elinor Lipman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320404587l/459337.SY75.jpg 447819]. I had a ball reading it.
