The Dearly Departed - Hardcover

Lipman, Elinor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679463127 ISBN 13: 9780679463122

Publisher: Random House, 2001

Synopsis

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 her unhappy adolescence, to the community that remembers her solely, nervously, as "the girl who golfed." 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: The country club opens its doors to its former Orphan Annie caddie. High school classmates, even the tormenters, have grown up nicely, matured in unforeseen and gratifying ways. Maybe, Sunny begins to think, she wasn't as beleaguered as she felt she was; maybe her mother's life was richer than anyone suspected; and maybe the man at the funeral-the one with her face, her flyaway hair, her golf swing-is the halfbrother she doesn't know she needs.

Elinor Lipman writes with the wry authority of a latter-day Jane Austen. The Dearly Departed is another perfect blend of social comedy, pointed wit, and precise pacing from our last urbane romantic.

About this title

About the Author

Elinor Lipman is the author of seven books: the novels The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, The Dearly Departed, The Ladies' Man, The Inn at Lake Devine, Isabel's Bed, The Way Men Act, Then She Found Me, and a collection of stories, Into Love and Out Again. She has been called "the diva of dialogue" (People) and  "the last urbane romantic" (Chicago Tribune). Book Magazine said of The Pursuit of Alice Thrift,  "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."
 
Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, Gourmet, Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times’ Writers on Writing series.  She received the New England Booksellers' 2001 fiction award for a body of work.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Ladies Man

"I loved every page of this very funny, insightful, sophisticated yet good-natured book."
—The New York Times Book Review

"In a deft balancing act, Lipman gets at heartache and familial truths with both honesty and humor."
—Entertainment Weekly

"Delightful. . . . Once you start reading this book, you wonít want to do anything else."
—Newsday

"Hilarious. . . . [Lipman's] fiction renders serious subjects through a lens of humor and hope."
—The Boston Globe

"Nobody is better at distilling motives and first impressions in narrative shorthand. . . . You won't find better reporting from the front lines of the battle between the sexes."
—The Seattle Times

"Smart, darkly comic . . . Lipman's sharp satiric sense recalls that of Alison Lurie."
—Chicago Tribune


Praise for The Inn at Lake Devine

"A tale of delicious revenge."
—USA Today

"An author who was born with an auto-immune system already primed against clichés and an ear for dialogue sharper than an electronic listening system."
—The Times (London)

From the Inside Flap

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 her unhappy adolescence, to the community that remembers her solely, nervously, as "the girl who golfed." 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: The country club opens its doors to its former Orphan Annie caddie. High school classmates, even the tormenters, have grown up nicely, matured in unforeseen and gratifying ways. Maybe, Sunny begins to think, she wasn't as beleaguered as she felt she was; maybe her mother's life was richer than anyone suspected; and maybe the man at the funeral-the one with her face, her flyaway hair, her golf swing-is the halfbrother she doesn't know she needs.

Elinor Lipman writes with the wry autho

Reviews

Lipman (The Ladies Man) sets her breezy, workmanlike novel in King George, N.H., a small town where the sudden accidental deaths of a secretly engaged couple summon their two grown-up children to sort out the conundrum of their relation to each other. Both the dead woman's stoical daughter, Sunny Batten, and the man's cranky son, Fletcher Finn, possess an identical corona of satiny gray hair; both are 31; and neither has ever met the other, although their parents have been on-and-off lovers for years. Sunny, who lives in New York, grew up with her mother in King George, and as a girl was a serious golfer. Fletcher, who grew up in Pennsylvania, has just gotten himself fired as campaign manager to Emily Ann Grandjean, an annoying, anorexic rich-girl candidate in a New Jersey congressional race. One look at Sunny and Fletcher's resemblance to each other at the funeral and the town is abuzz with conjecture and benign gossip. Novelist Lipman, who knows from smalltown, confidently enters the head of everyone worth meeting in King George: chief of police Joey Loach, who survives a gunshot thanks to his mother's insistence that he wear a bulletproof vest; Sunny's former best friend, Regina, who married the captain of the golf team; and the waitress at the Dot, Winnie, who keeps tabs on everyone. After the initial plot is pleasantly sketched out, the work feels thin, and Lipman resorts to repetitious dialogue and switches in narrative voice to keep the action moving. Major characters like Sunny and Emily Ann begin to sound alike, and Fletcher's initial, endearing prickliness smoothes out predictably to allow Lipman to tidily tie up the ends of this unremarkable, occasionally humorous, mostly conventional light comedy. 12-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Readers can count on Lipman for stylish, sprightly novels imbued with a deep affection for her all-too-human characters. Her newest offering continues the high standard set by her first novel, Then She Found Me (LJ 3/15/90), and continued through her recent The Ladies' Man (LJ 6/1/99). When Sunny Batten, now in her early thirties, returns home to tiny King George, NH, following the accidental death of her mother and her mother's fianc?, Miles Finn, she is thrown back into a milieu that she had gladly left years before. Sunny, the most talented golfer in high school, has nothing but unhappy memories of her adolescence, when she and her mother braved the displeasure of the town by forcing the school administration to make her a member of the previously all-male school golf team. The caring and sympathy that she now receives from everyone she meets comes as a shock, as does meeting Miles Finn's son, Fletcher. Fletcher could be her twin: he has the same facial structure and the same flyaway, prematurely gray hair. Were there pockets in her mother's past of which Sunny was unaware? In this delightfully breezy novel, Sunny learns that you can go home again, with surprisingly happy results. For all public libraries.
- Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It is a rare treat to read a book that is at once utterly modern but also evokes the world of Wooster and Jeeves. Lipman, author of The Ladies' Man (1999) and The Inn at Lake Devine (1998), among others, performs just such a combination in her newest novel. As a satire of the political and moneyed world, it is a riot; as an investigation into the secret hearts of women, it is slyly understanding; as a peek into the entangled life of small towns, it is shark-tooth sharp; and as a portrait of a thirtysomething crowd who matured together from high school, it is nothing short of brilliant. Lipman opens all these worlds to her gently mocking microscope as she follows the lives of characters not used to self-examination: the former high-school jock turned husband, the rich girl seeking a cause, the sheriff with the overly protective mother, and the intertwined quest of unknown siblings. The result is a story so funny and so pleasurable that the reader can only wish it did not have to end. Neal Wyatt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

Come Back to King George

Sunny met Fletcher for the first time at their parents’ funeral, a huge graveside affair where bagpipes wailed and strangers wept. It was a humid, mosquito-plagued June day, and the grass was spongy from a midnight thunderstorm. They had stayed on the fringes of the crowd until both were rounded up and bossed into the prime mourners’ seats by the funeral director. Sunny wore white—picture hat, dress, wet shoes—and an expression that layered anger over grief: Who is he? How dare he? Are any of these gawkers friends?

Unspoken but universally noticed was the physical attribute she and Fletcher shared—a halo of prematurely gray hair of a beautiful shade and an identical satiny, flyaway texture. No DNA test result, no hints in wills, could be more eloquent than this: the silver corona of signature hair above their thirty-one-year-old, identically furrowed brows.

The King George Bulletin had reported every possible angle, almost gleefully. Margaret Batten, local actress, and friend found unconscious, said the first banner headline. Bulletin paper carrier calls 911, boasted the kicker. An arty photo—sunrise in King George—of scrawny, helmeted Tyler Lopez on his bike, a folded newspaper frozen in flight, appeared on page 1. “I knew something was wrong when I saw them laying on the floor—the woman and a man,” he told the reporter. “The door was open. I thought they might still be alive, so I used the phone.” Inescapable in the coverage was the suggestion of a double suicide or foul play. Yellow police tape surrounded the small house. Even after tests revealed carbon monoxide in their blood and a crack in the furnace’s heat exchanger, Bulletin reporters carried on, invigorated by a double, coed death on their beat.

A reader named Vickileigh Vaughn wrote a letter to the editor. She wanted to clarify something on the record so all of King George would know: Friend in the headline was inaccurate and possibly libelous. Miles Finn and Margaret Batten were engaged to be married. Friends, yes, but so much more than that. An outdoor wedding had been discussed. If the odorless and invisible killer hadn’t overcome them, Miles would have left, as was his custom, before midnight, after the Channel 9 news.

Sunny was notified by a message on her answering machine. “Sunny? It’s Fletcher Finn, Miles’s son. Could you pick up if you’re there?” Labored breathing filled the pause. “I guess not. Okay. Listen, I don’t know when I can get to a phone again, so I’ll have to give you the news, which is somewhat disturbing.” Another pause, too long for the machine, which clicked off. He called back. “Hi, it’s Fletcher Finn again. Here’s what I was going to say. I’ll make it quick: I got a call from the police in Saint George, New Hampshire—no, sorry, King George. They found our parents unconscious. Nobody knows anything. I’ve got the name of the hospital and the other stuff the cop said. What’s your fax number? Call me. I’ll be up late.”

Sunny phoned the King George police. The crime scene, she was told by a solicitous male voice, was roped off until the lab work came back. Sunny pictured the peeling gray bungalow secured with yellow tape, its sagging porch and overgrown lilacs cinched in the package.

“Are they going to die?” she asked.

“Sunny?” said the officer. “It’s Joe Loach. From Mattatuck Avenue? We were in study hall together junior and senior—”

“I got a message from a Fletcher Finn, who said his father and my mother were found unconscious, but that’s all I know. He didn’t even say what hospital.”

Loach coughed. “Sunny? They weren’t taken to a hospital. It was too late for that.”

“No,” Sunny moaned. “No. Please.”

“It was the damn carbon monoxide. It builds up over time, and then it’s too late. I’m so sorry. I hate to do this over the phone . . .”

When she couldn’t answer, he said, “I saw your mother in Driving Miss Daisy at the VFW, and she was really something.”

Sunny pictured her mother’s grande-dame bow and the magisterial sweep of the arm that invited her leading man to join her in the spotlight. It had taken practice, with Sunny coaching, because Margaret’s inclination was to blush and look amazed.

“You’re where now? Connecticut?”

She said she was.

“Okay. One step at a time. Nothing says you can’t make arrangements by telephone. Maybe your mother put her preferences in writing—people do that, something like, ‘Instructions. To be opened in the event of my death.’ I could walk anything over to the funeral parlor for you. In fact, remember Dickie Saint-Onge from our class? He took over the business. He’s used to handling things long-distance.”

“I’m coming up,” said Sunny.

“She and her fiancé didn’t suffer,” said Joey Loach. “That much I can promise you.”

“Fiancé?” she repeated. “How do you know that?”

“That seems to be everyone’s understanding. Her cleaning lady wrote a letter to the editor to set the record straight. Plus, there was a ring on the appropriate finger.”

Sunny cried softly, her hand over the receiver.

“Can I do anything?” he asked. “Can I call anyone?”

“I’d better get off,” she said. “There must be some phone calls I should make. I’m sure that’s what I’m supposed to do next.”

“Just so you know, the house is okay now. They found the leak and fixed it, the town did, first thing. You don’t have to be afraid of sleeping there. I’ll make sure that everything is shipshape.”

“I think my friend Regina used to baby-sit for your sister,” she said. “Marilyn?”

“Marilee,” said Joey. “She’s still here. We’re all still here. So’s Regina. You okay?”

“I meant to say thank you,” said Sunny, “but that’s what came out instead.”

“You’re welcome,” said Joey Loach.

Fletcher sounded more annoyed than mournful when he reached Sunny the next morning. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “I would have thought you’d have returned my call.”

“You didn’t leave your number,” said Sunny.

“I’m sure you can appreciate that I wasn’t thinking about secretarial niceties last night,” he snapped.

“Such as ‘I’m so sorry about your mother’?”

“I didn’t know her,” he said. “And at the time of my call I believed she was still alive.”

Sunny quietly slipped the receiver into its cradle. It rang seconds later.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679463127
• ISBN 13: 9780679463122
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288