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A Favorite Book

 A novel of manners is just about how people talk to one another in cafes, on dates, in offices. For a certain reader, this is catnip; I am that certain reader.


Elinor Lipman, queen of comic novelists, writes about manners. She considers how you might send a gentle reminder if your e-mail correspondent seems to have become a ghost. She memorizes the people who show up for a particular funeral -- then she notes how the act of "showing up" moves mountains. She sees the comedy in a cover letter, or a resume -- and she helps us see the comedy, too.

A few years ago, Lipman's husband died, and Lipman didn't want to leave the house. So she mocked herself, in fiction; she invented a widow who is terrified of the world, and who wants to market a sex-free Match.com service called "Chaste Dates." When Lipman did find herself stepping out, she kept a journal close at hand; she later found a spot in her novel for "a blind date, a former baseball player who effectively ended our romance when he ordered lasagna, then removed wet gum from his mouth and stuck it to the bottom of the restaurant's chair."

Lipman also has fun describing a chauvinist who arrives one hour early to a date--without warning--then berates his new friend for having failed to get ready. The chauvinist turns to his stooge and says, "Just drive." When the world is unkind to the chauvinist, the crazy guy is surprised. "Just work with me," he says. "Come on. You said you'd eat with me."

The Lipman book I'm describing is "The View from Penthouse B" -- and it's about ordinary people struggling at the office and in moody Manhattan bars. It's everyday life -- but we see things in a fresh way, because of Lipman's talent. It's funny and moving -- a "mic drop" book.
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