ISABEL'S BED - Hardcover

Elinor Lipman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671881604 ISBN 13: 9780671881603

Publisher: Atria Books, 1995

Synopsis

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 The unpublished, fortyish, and recently jilted Harriet had fled wintry Manhattan in response to a mysterious ad in The New York Review of Books: "Book in progress?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.

About this title

Review:

Isabel's Bed gives us the intricate and deft plot, crisp dialogue and unexpected twists and turns we have come to expect in the comic novels of Elinor Lipman. Here we meet Harriet Mahoney, a would-be writer recently jilted by her bagel-vending boyfriend. Harriet is at loose ends until she agrees to ghostwrite a chesty blonde's version of her tabloid past. Isabel Krug is the woman with the past; Harriet sees in her story the literary future that has eluded her. In the course of this partnership, unexpected alliances are formed, and fulfillment is found where no one thought to search.

From the Publisher:

When Harriet Mahoney first sees it, Isabel Krug's bed is covered in sheared sheep and littered with celebrity biographies. The unpublished, fortyish, and recently jilted Harriet has fled Manhattan for a room atop a Cape Cod dune. There, in Isabel's loudly elegant retreat, she'll ghostwrite The Isabel Krug Story, based on the sexy blonde's scandalous tabloid past. 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, Costas. Life according to Isabel is a soap-opera extravaganza, and experience to be swallowed whole -- and the attitude is catching ...

"Delightful ... engaging ... the perfect companion ... After a short while, these characters become more vivid than one's own friends."
--Linda Rodgers, San Francisco Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0671881604
• ISBN 13: 9780671881603
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400