The Ladies' Man: A Novel - Hardcover

Buch 86 von 248: Vintage Contemporaries

Lipman, Elinor

 
9780679456940: The Ladies' Man: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0679456945 ISBN 13: 9780679456940
Verlag: Random House USA Inc, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

Thirty years after abandoning his intended bride at their engagement party, a charming Harvey Nash shows up on the doorstep of his former fiancee and her sisters, all spinsters, and soon discovers that scorned women do not make the most gracious of hostesses

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elinor Lipman is the author of seven books: the novels <b>The Pursuit of Alice Thrift</b>, <b>The Dearly Departed</b>, <b>The Ladies' Man</b>, <b>The Inn at Lake Devine</b>, <b>Isabel's Bed</b>, <b>The Way Men Act</b>, <b>Then She Found Me</b>, and a collection of stories, <b>Into Love and Out Again</b>. She has been called "the diva of dialogue" (<i>People</i>) and  "the last urbane romantic" (<i>Chicago Tribune</i>). <i>Book Magazine</i> said of <b>The Pursuit of Alice Thrift</b>,  "Like Jane Austen,  the past master of the genre, Lipman isn't only out for laughs. She serves up social satire, too, that's all the more  trenchant for being deftly drawn."<br> <br>Her essays have appeared

Aus dem Klappentext

tselling author of <i>The Inn at Lake Devine</i> ("Rivals her own best work for its understanding of the way smart, opinionated people stumble toward happiness"--Glamour) and <i>Isabel's Bed</i> ("It's Fannie Farmer for the soul . . . delivered in a delicious style that is both funny and elegant"--USA Today) comes a darkly romantic comedy of manners that confirms Elinor Lipman's appointment to the Jane Austen chair in modern American sensibility.<br><br>Thirty unmarried years have passed since the barely suitable Harvey Nash failed to show up at a grand Boston hotel for his own engagement party. Today, the near-bride, Adele Dobbin, and her two sisters, Lois and Kathleen, blame Harvey for what unkind relatives call their spinsterhood, and what potential beaus might characterize as a leery, united front. The doorbell rings one cold April night. Harvey Nash, older, filled with regrets (sort of), more charming and arousable than ever, just in from the Coast, where he'

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One

In the months before Albert DeSalvo confessed to being the Boston Strangler, the three Dobbin sisters established their custom of arranging empty glass bottles like bowling pins inside their apartment door. They adopted the idea from Life, from a spread illustrating how women living alone near the crime scenes were petrified and taking precautions. The practice continues decades after the Boston Strangler confessed and died in prison, because the Dobbin sisters are cautious and intelligent women who expect the worst. The last sister to turn in checks the locks, latches the chain, and sets the booby trap of ten near-antique bottles that once held ginger ale, sarsaparilla, and root beer brewed by a defunct soft-drink company.

And what's the harm? It allows three women to sleep peacefully without sedatives, without surprises, and without expensive motion detectors. If Richard Dobbin, their brother, occasionally trips a false alarm, it is viewed as his own fault, his own stubborn resistance to calling ahead. He claims to forget between drop-in visits that they still arrange the bottles nightly. He has a key; he thinks he will slip in, sleep on the couch, leave a note on the kitchen table for the earliest riser, and be welcomed enthusiastically. The chain stops him, but, as designed, the door opens enough to trigger the pandemonium his sisters count on.

"It's me," he yells. "What's going on? It's me."

"Richard," says one, then each of the other sisters, hurrying into their bathrobes. "Let him in. Undo the chain. It's Richard."

"There've been some copycat murders on the north shore," explains Adele, the oldest, turning knobs and unhooking chains. "We've started setting our burglar alarm again."

"Jesus," says Richard, knocking over the last row of standing bottles. "I guess it works."

Adele asks him not to swear in the hallway.

"Can you stay?" asks Lois, the middle sister.

"Think I was popping in for a visit at ten forty-five?" Richard answers.

"Where's Leslie?" asks Kathleen.

"Home," he says, in a way that suggests home was not peaceful when he left.

"Is everything okay?" Kathleen asks.

"Fine."

Always good hostesses, they choose masculine striped sheets and brown towels from the linen closet; one sister disappears down the long central hall in search of a guest pillow and blanket. Kathleen offers to take the daybed and give their taller, bigger brother privacy and a real bed.

They range in age from Adele, fifty-three, to Richard, who is forty-four. No one is currently married or spoken for. Social lives vary from moribund (Adele's) to overactive (Richard's); in his sisters' opinion, he flirts too easily and cohabitates prematurely. Without evaluating their brother's capacity for monogamy, they assume he'd be happier if he settled down.

As for the sisters, it could have been different: There were many beaus in any given year, and a distribution of graces that made no one redheaded sister the most in demand. Adele had brains and the most classically pretty face. Lois had height and good bones, while Kathleen had-still has-wavy hair and the greenest eyes. Outside the immediate family, the unstudied explanation for their shared spinsterhood is what happened to Adele decades ago at age twenty-three: an engagement broken, unceremoniously and unilaterally, by an unsuitable boy

Today they consider themselves career women, with nice clothes and with jobs that provide either satisfaction or high seniority: Adele raises money for public television, Lois works for the Commonwealth, and Kathleen sells lingerie in her own shop downtown. Richard is the family underachiever, which is not acknowledged or even thought, because he is tall and charming, quite good-looking, adds new friends without dropping his old ones from high school or college, owns his own tuxedo, and has been an usher at no fewer than ten buddies' weddings. He delivers subpoenas for a living, and cultivates the understanding that it is a career that straddles law and law enforcement.

So picture the household: three adult sisters and a displaced brother on an unseasonably cold April night with a dusting of snow deposited by a passing squall. Richard will have settled into the den on the daybed, where the sisters usually watch their programs. He's made himself a cheese sandwich with relish on dill-cheese bread, which he doesn't like but eats cheerfully after fixing the TV's tint, which the women never adjust, even if the actors' faces are orange.

The downstairs buzzer rings after the sisters have returned to their rooms. They wait, assuming it is Richard-related, or the buzz of a careless visitor who has hit the wrong bell. In any event, they don't panic or even get out of bed, because Richard, an expert on getting into places where he's not welcome, is there in case of danger. The buzzer rings again, more insistently

"Richard?" Adele calls from her room.

He is watching television, so Adele tries again, louder.

"What?"

"The door. See who it is."

"Want me to buzz 'em in?"

"You don't buzz anyone in unless you know who it is," says Adele.

"It's probably one of his friends," says Kathleen. "They have a sixth sense about when Richard is visiting."

"It's probably Leslie," Richard says. "I better go down."

Richard puts his shoes on without socks, and takes the elevator to the lobby in his trousers and undershirt. On the other side of the glass door, squinting in from the vestibule, is a man, a stranger, tall, with a high forehead and wavy gray-brown hair. He is tanned, and his shoes are beautifully shined. It seems to Richard that this man with a Burberry raincoat over his arm is both rich and benign, that Richard can open the door and ask if there's been some mistake at this hour; that this is not a copycat murderer.

"Yes?" says Richard.

The man says, "Good evening."

"You rang Three-G?"

"The Dobbins."

"That's us," said Richard. "And you are . . . ?"

"I was hoping to see Adele. If she's in."

"It's late," says Richard. "So why don't you come back in the morning? No, they work in the morning. Give 'em a call after work."

"Richie," says the man, putting out his right hand as if peacemaking were in order. "It's Nash Harvey. I went with Adele a long time ago."

Richard peers into the man's gray eyes, and sees that it is true. "Harvey? Jesus Christ-what, like twenty-five years ago? The guy who disappeared?"

"Nineteen sixty-seven."

Richard is famously good-natured and optimistic, so he feels only curiosity and mild delight. "Some brothers might punch you in the nose right now. Or worse," he says.

Nash releases Richard's hand.

"Nah," says Richard. "I don't mean me. I was speaking hypothetically."

"Do you think she'll see me?"

"You're a brave man, Harv," says Richard.

"I've been on the West Coast."

"I know," says Richard. "Lois spotted your name on a box in a video store."

The intercom squawks, "Richard?"

"It's okay," he answers.

"Who is it?" asks the voice-Adele's.

"An old friend of mine. Didn't realize the time. He's going to a hotel."

She hesitates then says, "The Holiday Inn on Beacon Street probably has rooms available. Tell him we'd offer him a bed but we're full up."

Nash...

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Verlag
Random House USA Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0679456945
ISBN 13 
9780679456940
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
260
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Harder
https://www.edel.com

Neum�hlen 17
Hamburg
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

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