Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:
Isabel’s Bed: A Novel
Isabel’s Bed was a pretty major hit at the time – one of Lipman’s biggest – and it’s another book that makes me laugh out loud, but also become so engrossed that I miss appointments, and forget where I am. She’s so good. On every level. Her books are not “mood” books – about weaving a web with her prose (like Nancy Lemann’s books are). Her books have plot and structure. The dialogue is crisp and snappy. But it would be very wrong to think of Lipman as a utility writer, or a good craftsman. She is both of these things – but she’s more than that. It’s hard to be invisible as a writer. And it doesn’t suit every writer to be so. Michael Chabon is never invisible. Some people hate him for that reason. I happen to love him, but there you have it. Elinor Lipman is so good that she is nearly invisible. Her writing does not call attention to itself, but when you look at it through a microscope, it is impeccable. And not just impeccable – but lovely, evocative, poetic. That’s a true master.
Isabel’s Bed is awesome – with its multilayered structure. First you have Harriet – a struggling writer in New York – whose live-in boyfriend of 12 years or something like that – breaks the news to her that he is going to marry someone else. HOLY SHIT. Can you imagine? You put in 12 years of your life ??? This tragic event throws Harriet into a panic about her life, her career – she is trying to sell a novel, she is having no luck … so, out of desperation, she moves to Cape Cod, to try to finish her book. She is having no luck in writing it. It’s a serious novel about her parents marriage – if I can recall correctly. You know, a serious book. Desperate, she answers an ad in some trade magazine – looking for a “ghost writer”. Turns out that Isabel Krug – a notorious person, a tabloid favorite – is looking for someone to write her memoir for her. Isabel is famous because she was in bed with her millionaire lover – when the wife came in and shot her husband (Isabel’s lover) through the heart. There was then a spectacular murder case – a tabloid frenzy – Isabel’s face splashed everywhere – the “mistress of the murdered man” etc. It would be like if Amy Fisher was looking for a ghost writer. Although Joey is still alive. But you know – that’s the level of tabloid notoriety that Isabel Krug has. Isabel lives on the Cape – in isolation – with her long-time butler/assistant – and Harriet, a serious writer, gets the job of ghost-writer to this woman. Who is nuts – a true Lipman character. Self-involved, she has ZERO boundaries, is completely honest to a fault, kind of coarse – and yet – gradually – you just fall in love with this crazy woman. Harriet moves in with Isabel. She interviews her over a series of weeks about what happened. The cold empty Cape is the background for all of this.
It’s a wonderful book. So funny, and completely absorbing. Great characters, twists and turns – and also I love it because, in a way, it’s about the writing process. I can’t help but put myself in Harriet’s shoes. How on earth would I deal with this woman??
Isabel expects the book to be flattering to herself. But Harriet wants to write the truth. This might get rocky! Of course it begins as strictly a professional relationship – but because Isabel has no boundaries – she can’t help but start to get involved in Harriet’s journey (you can even see it in the excerpt below – when you can sense that Isabel wants company for dinner). Harriet does not welcome this personal intrusion … but naturally you cannot resist Isabel. Nobody ever could.
Pete – Isabel’s assistant – becomes a very important character as well. You just love the guy. And yeah. Harriet eventually loves him, too.
Like I said – many layers here. Great stuff.
Here’s an excerpt.
EXCERPT FROM Isabel’s Bed: A Novel
There weren’t even bubbles in the bath to obscure her private parts from me, her acquaintance of less than twenty-four hours. It was not the lolling soak of Calgon commercials; this was Isabel soaping her wash cloth and scrubbing her armpits and crotch in a manner I hadn’t done in front of Kenny after a decade of intimacy. I sat on a wrought iron stool at the foot of the black marble steps, which led to her elevated, sunken tub. She talked and soaked, talked and scrubbed, then talked and rinsed, while I tried to be as casual about her nudity as she was, and while many Isabels bounced off the mirrored walls.
And there was no getting around her breasts, especially i the context of Isabel as tabloid paramour, as the woman Guy VanVleet died for. They were big. Enormous. They drooped from their own weight below the bath water, then surfaced on display, areolas the size of coasters. I wanted to ask if they were real, but decided that no certified plastic surgeon would have built those. Ordinarily I’d feel sorry for a woman with water-balloon breasts, knowing the burdens they imposed, but I could see that Isabel prized them and regarded them as my first research project, as if seeing them would help me write between the lines.
I said, “Do we want to start with your life and proceed chronologically, or do we start with the night Guy was shot?”
” ‘The Night Guy Was Shot,’ ” Isabel repeated. “Write that down. I like that.” I made a note on my first blank page.
“Are you writing in shorthand?”
“Not lists you may be reading,” I said.
“Good thinking.”
“How are we going to approach it?” I asked again.
Isabel turned on the crystal faucet and ran more water into the black tub. “Approach what?” she asked, sinking deeper and closing her eyes.
“The narrative.”
“I’ve been talking into tapes for months. You play them back and take it all down and that’s where we get a book.”
When I didn’t answer, she said, “Don’t get nervous. I know I’m not writer. I only meant, first you’ll listen to the tapes, then you’ll ask me questions to fill in the blanks. Then you’ll make it into a book. I’ll give you all the newspaper clippings I have and when you’re done, we’ll get started.”
“Are you going to be the only source?”
She sat up a little straighter and said, “I don’t understand your question.”
“What if I want to interview some of the principals?”
“Like who?”
“Mrs. VanVleet?”
“Fat chance.”
“You don’t think she’d cooperate?”
“Why should she? As a favor to me, or as a good citizen?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Pomfret, Connecticut. A cushy sanitarium for the rich and criminally insane.”
“Wouldn’t you cooperate if someone were writing a serious piece of journalism on the case?”
“Not with me, I wouldn’t! She hates my guts.”
I asked what Nan’s sentence was.
“No sentence! She was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, which is what you plead if you’d rather be in a mental hospital than a prison. She’s there until the shrinks give her a clean bill of health.” She stood up and extended her hand, meaning towel.
“I’d love to talk to her,” I said.
“It’s my book. It’s about me. Nan VanVleet can write her own book.”
“Just for background? You want people to think it’s balanced.”
“I’ve got two years of clippings plus the transcripts, plus videotapes of my testimony. Examination, cross-examination, the works.”
“Do you have her testimony on tape, too?”
She looked perplexed: What am I, a documentary filmmaker?
I didn’t want to argue with my large, naked boss. I said I was going to find a nice sunny spot in my room and read as much as I could by Monday.
Isabel neither endorsed this plan nor objected to it, but I sensed a hesitation. “Is that okay with you?” I prompted.
“Fine. Pete Xeroxed about a million pages.”
“I read pretty fast.”
Still, she was quieter than she’d been all morning. I asked if talking about the case opened the old wounds. I mean, it wasn’t all that long ago. Post-traumatic stress disorder and the like.
She shrugged: nah.
So I said I’d be breaking for meals, naturally. How many would we be for dinner?
Her face brightened and the brisk toweling resumed. “Just the three of us,” she said.
The Books: “Then She Found Me” (Elinor Lipman)
Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt – on my adult fiction shelves: Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman What a wonderful writer Elinor Lipman is. She’s hugely successful – her books sell – but I don’t know if…
I was looking for pictures of alexander and eliza hamilton… you do that when you read chernow’s biography. he doesn’t show you any of the pictures, but he describes them in full detail. so incredibly annoying. i wasn’t looking for a sheila. but boy did i find one! i think one of your soul sisters was made for me.
and i can’t wait to meet her!
enjoy the journey. that’s what it’s all about anyway!
The Books: “Eastward to Tartary : Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus” (Robert Kaplan)
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The Books: “The Soccer War” (Ryszard Kapuscinski)
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The Books: “The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror” (Bernard Lewis)
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The Books: “NIGHTMARE YEARS : 1930 – 1940” (William L. Shirer)
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The Books: “Berlin Diary : The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941” (William L. Shirer)
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The Books: “Night Train to Turkistan” (Stuart Stevens)
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The Books: “Happy Isles of Oceania : Paddling the Pacific” (Paul Theroux)
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The Books: “The Kingdom by the Sea” (Paul Theroux)
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The Books: “Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China” (Paul Theroux)
And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library. Next book on the shelf is yet another Paul Theroux book – called Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China . Published in 1988, Riding the Iron…
The Books: “Among the Russians: From the Baltic to the Caucasus” (Colin Thubron)
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The Books: “The Lost Heart of Asia” (Colin Thubron)
And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library. Next book on the shelf is the second in the “Russian trilogy” – and it’s called The Lost Heart of Asia , by Colin Thubron. Uhm … I…
The Books: “The Last Great Revolution : Turmoil and Transformation in Iran” (Robin Wright)
And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library. Next book on the shelf is The Last Great Revolution : Turmoil and Transformation in Iran , by Robin Wright. Wright, a reporter who first started covering Iran…
The Books: “An Unexpected Light : Travels in Afghanistan” (Jason Elliot)
And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library. I’m finished alphabetically with all of the books on the “history” shelves – at least with the ones I’ve read. Next I have a shelf where I keep…
Hello Sheila,
First I have to apologize to you and your friends who read my comment on cara ellison’s blog.
My regular readers knew what I was up to.
I am trying to show, quite successfully I think, that Obamaists donât have a substantive reason to vote for him.
I hope I didn’t make any permanent enemies. I like your blog and I hope that in the future we can exchange ideas.
If you are willing, come on over and check out some of the “new” reasons to vote for Obama.
Heck while your there leave some of your own that fit the mold.
Not only are you SPAMMING people, but you are in violation of my comment policy. Already. With your first comment on my site. Not a good beginning.
Sorry about that Sheila,
I am new to this.
I didn’t know you had a comments policy.
Please delete any of my messages.
I promise not to visit or disturb you again.
God Bless
//I am new to this//
Yeah, well, I’m in no mood to babysit. Learn the rules of the game before you jump in.
The Books: “Isabel’s Bed” (Elinor Lipman)
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The Books: “The Way Men Act” (Elinor Lipman)
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The Books: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (James Joyce)
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The Books: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (James Joyce)
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The Books: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (James Joyce)
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The Books: “Dubliners” – ‘Counterparts’ (James Joyce)
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The Books: “Dubliners” – ‘A Little Cloud’ (James Joyce)
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The Books: “The Bone People” (Keri Hulme)
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The Books: “Catch-22” (Joseph Heller) Excerpt 6
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The Books: “Catch-22” (Joseph Heller) Excerpt 5
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The Books: “Catch-22” (Joseph Heller) Excerpt 4
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The Books: “The Pursuit of Alice Thrift” (Elinor Lipman)
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The Books: “Because They Wanted to” – ‘Blanket’ (Mary Gaitskill)
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The Books: “The Great Gatsby” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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The Books: “L.A. Confidential” (James Ellroy)
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The Books: “Middlemarch” (George Eliot)
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The Books: “Geek Love” (Katherine Dunn)
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The Books: “Hunts in Dreams” (Tom Drury)
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The Books: “The Brothers Karamazov ” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
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The Books: “Underworld” (Don Delillo)
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The Books: “White Noise” (Don Delillo)
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The Books: “House of Leaves” (Mark Danielewski)
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The Books: “The Colorist” (Susan Daitch)
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The Books: “The Final Solution: A Story of Detection” (Michael Chabon)
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The Books: “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” (Michael Chabon)
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The Books: “Wonder Boys” (Michael Chabon)
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The Books: “Mysteries of Pittsburgh” (Michael Chabon)
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The Books: “The Alienist” (Caleb Carr)
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The Books: “Music for Chameleons” – ‘Nocturnal Turnings, or How Siamese Twins Have Sex’ (Truman Capote)
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The Books: “Music for Chameleons” – ‘A Beautiful Child’ (Truman Capote)
Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt: Music for Chameleons – by Truman Capote. Today’s excerpt is from ‘A Beautiful Child’. This is perhaps the most famous of these little transcripts. 1955. Marilyn Monroe and Truman Capote, drinking buddies…
The Books: “Music for Chameleons” (Truman Capote)
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The Books: “The Call of the Wild” (Jack London)
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The Books: “The Matisse Stories” – ‘Medusa’s Ankles’ (A.S. Byatt)
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The Books: “Sugar and Other Stories” – ‘Sugar’ (A.S. Byatt)
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The Books: “Sugar and Other Stories” – ‘In the Air’ (A.S. Byatt)
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The Books: “The Game” (A.S. Byatt)
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The Books: “The Shadow of the Sun” (A.S. Byatt)
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The Books: “The Master and Margarita” (Mikhail Bulgakov)
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The Books: “The Da Vinci Code” (Dan Brown)
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The Books: “Running from Safety” (Richard Bach)
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The Books: “One” (Richard Bach)
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The Books: “Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” (Richard Bach)
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The Books: “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” (Richard Bach)
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The Books: “The Robber Bride” (Margaret Atwood)
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The Book: “Wilderness Tips” – ‘Hairball’ (Margaret Atwood)
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The Books: “Cat’s Eye” (Margaret Atwood)
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The Books: “Cat’s Eye” (Margaret Atwood)
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The Books: “Cat’s Eye” (Margaret Atwood)
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The Books: Against the Odds: ‘The Strike at Putney’ (L.M. Montgomery)
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The Books: Against the Odds: ‘A Substitute Journalist’ (L.M. Montgomery)
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The Books: At the Altar: ‘What Aunt Marcella Would Have Called It’ (L.M. Montgomery)
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The Books: The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann)
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The Books: Magic for Marigold (L.M. Montgomery)
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The Books: “The End of the Affair” (Graham Greene)
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The Books: “Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran” (Elaine Sciolino)
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The Books: “Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples” (V.S. Naipaul)
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The Books: “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey” (V.S. Naipaul)
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The Books: “Shah of Shahs” (Ryszard Kapuscinski)
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The Books: “The Cider House Rules” (John Irving)
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The Books: “The Matisse Stories” – ‘Art Work’ (A.S. Byatt)
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The Books: “Dubliners” – ‘Ivy Day In the Committee Room’ (James Joyce)
Next book on my adult fiction shelves: Dubliners – by James Joyce – excerpt from the twelfth story in the collection: “Ivy Day In the Committee Room”. A story made up almost entirely of dialogue, this one is a toughie….
The Books: “Sugar and Other Stories” – ‘On the Day That E.M. Forster Died’ (A.S. Byatt)
Next up in my Daily Book Excerpt … Adult fiction shelves: This excerpt is from “On the Day That E.M. Forster Died”, another short story from the collection Sugar and Other Stories – by A.S. Byatt. This is my…
The Books: “Music for Chameleons” – ‘A Day’s Work’ (Truman Capote)
Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves: Music for Chameleons – by Truman Capote. Today’s excerpt is from ‘A Day’s Work’. In 1979 Truman Capote spends the day hanging out with Mary Sanchez – a professional cleaning woman who has…
The Books: “Little Black Book of Stories” – ‘The Pink Ribbon’ (A.S. Byatt)
Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves: The next book on the shelf is the last short story collection by AS Byatt, and this one is called Little Black Book of Stories. This is an excerpt from “The Pink Ribbon”,…