{"id":7773,"date":"2008-02-15T07:15:15","date_gmt":"2008-02-15T12:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7773"},"modified":"2015-05-11T10:23:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:23:23","slug":"the-books-isabels-bed-elinor-lipman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7773","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cIsabel\u2019s Bed\u201d (Elinor Lipman)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:<\/p>\n

Isabel’s Bed: A Novel<\/i><\/a>\"\" by Elinor Lipman<\/p>\n

\"isabels_bed_lg.jpg\"Isabel’s Bed<\/i> 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<\/i>, evocative, poetic. That’s a true master.<\/p>\n

Isabel’s Bed<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n

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??<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pete – Isabel’s assistant – becomes a very important character as well. You just love the guy. And yeah. Harriet eventually loves him, too.<\/p>\n

Like I said – many layers here. Great stuff.<\/p>\n

Here’s an excerpt.<\/p>\n


\nEXCERPT FROM Isabel’s Bed: A Novel<\/i><\/a>\"\" by Elinor Lipman<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I said, “Do we want to start with your life and proceed chronologically, or do we start with the night Guy was shot?”<\/p>\n

” ‘The Night Guy Was Shot,’ ” Isabel repeated. “Write that down. I like that.” I made a note on my first blank page.<\/p>\n

“Are you writing in shorthand?”<\/p>\n

“Not lists you may be reading,” I said.<\/p>\n

“Good thinking.”<\/p>\n

“How are we going to approach it?” I asked again.<\/p>\n

Isabel turned on the crystal faucet and ran more water into the black tub. “Approach what?” she asked, sinking deeper and closing her eyes.<\/p>\n

“The narrative.”<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

“Are you going to be the only source?”<\/p>\n

She sat up a little straighter and said, “I don’t understand your question.”<\/p>\n

“What if I want to interview some of the principals?”<\/p>\n

“Like who?”<\/p>\n

“Mrs. VanVleet?”<\/p>\n

“Fat chance.”<\/p>\n

“You don’t think she’d cooperate?”<\/p>\n

“Why should she? As a favor to me, or as a good citizen?”<\/p>\n

“Do you know where she is?”<\/p>\n

“Pomfret, Connecticut. A cushy sanitarium for the rich and criminally insane.”<\/p>\n

“Wouldn’t you cooperate if someone were writing a serious piece of journalism on the case?”<\/p>\n

“Not with me, I wouldn’t! She hates my guts.”<\/p>\n

I asked what Nan’s sentence was.<\/p>\n

“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>.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to talk to her,” I said.<\/p>\n

“It’s my book. It’s about me. Nan VanVleet can write her own book.”<\/p>\n

“Just for background? You want people to think it’s balanced.”<\/p>\n

“I’ve got two years of clippings plus<\/i> the transcripts, plus videotapes of my testimony. Examination, cross-examination, the works.”<\/p>\n

“Do you have her testimony on tape, too?”<\/p>\n

She looked perplexed: What am I, a documentary filmmaker?<\/i><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Isabel neither endorsed this plan nor objected to it, but I sensed a hesitation. “Is that okay with you?” I prompted.<\/p>\n

“Fine. Pete Xeroxed about a million pages.”<\/p>\n

“I read pretty fast.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

She shrugged: nah.<\/p>\n

So I said I’d be breaking for meals, naturally. How many would we be for dinner?<\/p>\n

Her face brightened and the brisk toweling resumed. “Just the three of us,” she said.<\/p>\n