Elinor Lipman
Describe your latest project.
My latest book, My Latest Grievance, is my eighth novel; it's narrated by Frederica Hatch, who was raised in a college dormitory, the daughter of two professors who are also house parents and very earnest agitators. Things go a bit haywire when Laura Lee French — new housemother, homewrecker, and ex-wife of Frederica's dad — arrives on campus and wreaks some emotional havoc.
What fictional character would you like to date?
I developed quite a crush on Anthony Rubin, boy next door and Jewish high school hockey player in Frederick Reiken's The Lost Legends of New Jersey.
What is your favorite literary first line?
"I have never begun a novel with more misgiving."
—W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
Offer a favorite sentence or passage from another writer.
When I first read Madeleine Blais's memoir, Uphill Walkers, I faxed her hilarious summer camp chapter to some friends, pre-publication. Here are just a few sentences from her wonderful book:
At camp, I became, well, famous. So great was my enthusiasm, so fulsome and nonstop my tributes to the fresh air and the scouting spirit, that when a lady from the local newspaper came to camp to do a feature story, she interviewed me as well as four other equally vocal campers. To this poor reporter, who, as a woman, was probably not allowed to cover real news (I still vainly search for her byline to this day: Enid Schwarzwald, where are you?), I chatted about the thrill of bag lunches on hikes and the opportunity to make new friends from other cultures, meaning two towns over.
Describe the best breakfast of your life.
Well, you'll think I'm pandering, but it was the salmon hash with poached eggs at the Heathman Hotel in Portland. Eggs Benedict come and go, but this is a showstopper.
What is your idea of absolute happiness?
I've recently acquired an apartment in Manhattan, and just being there, subway stop on my corner, the food, Central Park, the sheer convenience of everything makes me think that New York City was a lifelong dream I didn't know I had until it happened.
What is your favorite indulgence, either wicked or benign?
Does guilty pleasure count? I confess: American Idol.
Share an interesting experience you've had with one of your readers.
This meant a great deal to me: A reader told me, her voice choked, that her mother had been very ill, dying of cancer and in a lot of pain. She said, "I brought her home and gave her Isabel's Bed to read. Soon I could hear her laughing from the next room."
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