Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
``My Latest Grievance'' by Elinor Lipman; Houghton Mifflin ($24)
---
"I live," says young Frederica Hatch, "in a certifiably crazy place."
A sleepy, subpar women's school, circa the mid-1970s in snowy Brookline, Mass., may not sound like an epicenter of chaos. But in the capable hands of Elinor Lipman, Dewing College - a dubious finishing school "best known for turning out attractive secretaries who married up" - turns out to be quite the frothing cauldron of secrets and scandal and an exceptionally apt canvas for Lipman's lively, literate satire.
Author of seven delightful novels, including "The Inn at Lake Devine," "The Dearly Departed," "The Ladies' Man" and "And Then She Found Me," Lipman deftly and humorously dissects the oddities of closed communities. The fishbowl of Dewing provides a perfect setting for her articulate, wise commentary on academic society, leftover 1960s activism and tangled family dynamics.
Frederica has grown up at Dewing, living in a dorm with her pro-labor, vastly liberal, astonishingly open-minded professor parents, Aviva (Ph.D. in sociology) and David (Ph.D. in psychology). "Two bleeding hearts that beat as one," Frederica observes wryly. Aviva paints nipples on Frederica's Barbie dolls in the interest of anatomical accuracy.
David is also fastidiously correct: "Who's `everyone'? You know how we feel about your citing that pronoun as the subject of a sentence proclaiming some trend, some fashion, some allegedly majority opinion." Are they not, Frederica asks wearily, "the most annoyingly evenhanded parental team in the history of civilization?"
But into their insular world drops new dorm mother Laura Lee French - unflappable, brash, an alleged former Rockette and, well, let's just say it, possible nutcase - who also happens to be David's first wife, news that Frederica accidentally discovers and absorbs with avid interest. "I waited for an opportunity to detonate this connubial bomb at home, perhaps to trade it for something tangible - a sweet-sixteen party for a ten-speed bike - to offset my indignation at being kept in the dark."
Laura Lee is something of a sore subject for the Hatches, who met and fell in love when David and Laura Lee were still married. "My Latest Grievance" is definitely a comic novel, but Lipman uses its framework to introduce such big ticket issues as adultery and to explore the impossibility of perfection, even among the best-intentioned. As in "The Inn at Lake Devine," she also effectively touches on anti-Semitism - David's Protestant mother seems to prefer Laura Lee as a daughter-in-law over Jewish Aviva, if only for an easier time at holidays - without allowing its seriousness to overwhelm the light-hearted tone.
When Laura Lee takes up with Dewing's married president in a shockingly public way, rumors and speculation swirl, and Frederica is fascinated and appalled. "Condone or condemn? What do parents do when they've been ivory-tower sweethearts themselves?"
Thanks to Lipman's spot-on characterizations, the Hatches behave exactly as they should. And critical, precocious Frederica finally learns a lesson or two about life's awkward twists and turns.
"We think you'll take away from this the following: that nothing in life is this simple or this transparent," Aviva tells her. But one thing is simple enough: Turn Lipman loose on conflicting moralities and shifting allegiances, and you always will be entertained.
---
(c) 2006, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
