Audiobooks by Elinor Lipman

It's 1962, and all across America barriers are collapsing. But when Natalie Marx's mother inquires about summer accommodations in Vermont, she gets the following reply: The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles. For twelve-year-old Natalie, who has a stubborn sense of justice, the words are not a rebuff but an infuriating, irresistible challenge. In this beguiling novel, Elinor Lipman charts her heroine's fixation with a small bastion of genteel anti-Semitism, a fixation that will have wildly unexpected consequences on her romantic life. As Natalie tries to enter the world that has excluded her—and succeeds through the sheerest of accidents—The Inn at Lake Devine becomes a delightful and provocative romantic comedy full of sparkling social mischief.

Elinor Lipman (Author), Piper Goodeve (Narrator)

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On Turpentine Lane: A Novel

At thirty-two, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiance is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state). And never mind her witless boss, or a mother who lives too close, or a philandering father who thinks he's Chagall. When she finds some mysterious artifacts in the attic of her new home, she wonders whether anything in her life is as it seems.

Elinor Lipman (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays

Elinor Lipman has populated her fictional universe with characters so utterly real that we feel like they're old friends. Now she shares an even more intimate world with us - her own - in essays that offer a candid, charming take on modern life. Looking back and forging ahead, she considers the subjects that matter most: childhood and condiments, long marriage and solo living, career and politics. Here you'll find the lighthearted: a celebration of four decades of All My Children, a reflection on being Jewish in heavily Irish-Catholic Lowell on St. Patrick's Day, a hilariously unflinching account of her tiptoe into online dating. But she also tackles the serious and profound in eloquent stories of unexpected widowhood and caring for elderly parents that use her struggles to illuminate ours. "A feast of bite-sized morsels of humor and wisdom." - Kirkus Reviews

Elinor Lipman (Author), Elinor Lipman (Narrator)

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The View from Penthouse B

Unexpectedly widowed Gwen-Laura Schmidt is still mourning her husband when her sister Margot invites her to join forces as roommates in Margot's luxurious Village apartment. For Margot, divorced amid scandal, then made Ponzi-poor, it's a chance to shake Gwen out of her grief and help make ends meet. To further this effort she enlists a third boarder, the handsome Anthony. As the three swap money-making schemes and Gwen ventures back out into the dating world, the arrival of Margot's paroled ex in the apartment downstairs creates not just complications but the chance for all sorts of unexpected forgiveness. A sister story about love, loneliness, and new life in middle age, this is a cracklingly witty, deeply sweet novel from one of our finest comic writers.

Elinor Lipman (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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The Family Man

A hysterical phone call from Henry Archer’s ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend his well ordered life and bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old fashioned man, gay, successful, and lonely. Thalia is now 28, a hopeful actress, estranged from her newly widowed crackpot mother—Denise, Henry’s ex. Hoping it will lead to better things for her career, Thalia agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a former child star and current horror movie luminary who is down on his romantic luck. When Thalia and her complicated social life move into the basement of Henry’s Upper West Side townhouse, she finds a champion in her long lost father, and he finds new life—and maybe even new love—in the commotion. “The plot alone will suck in readers, but Lipman’s knack for creating lovable and multifaceted characters is the real draw.”--Publishers Weekly

Elinor Lipman (Author), Jonathan Davis (Narrator)

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Then She Found Me

April Epner teaches high school Latin, wears flannel jumpers, and is used to having her evenings free. Bernice Graverman brandishes designer labels, favors toad-sized earrings, and hosts her own tacky TV talk show: Bernice G! But behind the glitz and glam, Bernice has followed the life of the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty-six years ago. Now that she’s got her act together, she’s aiming to be a mom like she always knew she could. And she’s hurtling straight for April’s quiet little life. “Keenly expressed insights…Charming.”--Vogue

Elinor Lipman (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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The Dearly Departed

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, and 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 half brother she doesn't know she needs.

Elinor Lipman (Author), Jen Taylor (Narrator)

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Isabel's Bed: A Novel

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 Van Vleet died and Isabel lived to tell about it. Unusually talented in the man department, Isabel revamps and inspires Harriet as they gear up to tell all. Life according to Isabel is a soap-opera extravaganza, an experience to be swallowed whole-and the attitude is catching.

Elinor Lipman (Author), Grace Conlin (Narrator)

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My Latest Grievance

Frederica Hatch, born and raised in a college dorm and chafing under the care of “the most annoyingly evenhanded parental team in the history of civilization,” is starting to feel that her life is stiflingly snug. Then into this cozy but claustrophobic world comes Laura Lee French, a wannabe Rockette and the new dorm mother at the lackluster women’s college where Frederica’s parents teach and agitate. Further disturbing the peace is the fact that Miss French—in the distant past—had been married to Frederica’s earnest and unglamorous father. Fearing scandal and campus glee, the three Hatches and Laura Lee attempt to keep their secret. “Lovable, psychologically intricate... [a] bittersweet farce.”--New York Times Book Review

Elinor Lipman (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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