THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9503300619
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER DAVIS MCDAID
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
ISABEL'S BED
ELINOR LIPMAN
Pocket Books. 387 pp. $20.
ELINOR LIPMAN has written the perfect novel with which to begin springtime. Isabel's Bed, Lipman's third novel, is a riveting, fun read knocked off in one sitting.
The life of Harriet Mahoney, a struggling writer in a lackluster relationship with a Manhattan bagel baker, is changed one day by The New York Review of Books. An advertisement beckons: ``Book in progress? While you're at it, why not share my Cape Cod retreat? Roomy and peaceful: your life will be your own.''
Jilted soon after by her boyfriend of 12 years, Harriet craves a fresh start. She answers the ad, putting the best possible spin on her degree from a defunct women's college, her two unpublished novels about ``the kind of love that small English movies celebrated'' and a string of secretarial jobs in which she learned to clear the paper paths in all makes of copy machines. Straight away Harriet arrives in Truro, Mass., with her typewriter and two suitcases, and comes face to face with Isabel Kurg - a statuesque blonde with lips and nails painted Ooh La La Red.
In exchange for room and board, all Harriet has to do is ghostwrite The Isabel Krug Story, based on a nasty night in Greenwich, Conn., when the lives of Isabel, her lover Guy van Vleet and his preppie wife Nan converged unexpectedly, leaving Guy dead from a gunshot wound to the chest and Nan incarcerated in a hospital for the rich and temporarily insane. Isabel, who had the composure to disarm Nan and call the police, then put on a robe, emerged unscathed and now wants to tell her story to the world. Ensconced in an oceanfront room, Harriet begins to piece together the crime from trial transcripts and videos, newspaper clippings and Isabel's autobiographical cassettes titled ``Me, the early years'' and ``Me, part two.''
Unfortunately, Harriet experiences writer's block . . . and a lot more. Her newly married ex-boyfriend sends bagels by Federal Express; an eccentric artist named Costas develops an interest in Harriet's shower; and a recently released Nan decides to write her own book.
As for her hostess, Isabel, a former personal shopper, is unquestionably gifted in the men and fashion departments. ``I give lessons,'' she confides to Harriet at the local bar. Her expertise comes in handy when Harriet meets Isabel's handyman Pete Da Silva, an ex-fisherman and dog lover whose friendship has the potential to blossom into something more.
Lipman deftly draws Harriet as an everywoman struggling to make sense of life, love and career. Watching her adapt to life in the wildly unpredictable Krug household - and transform her own life - is both humorous and touching. You may want to devour Isabel's Bed like Easter candy - all at once. With a book this good, though, you'll want to make it last, then read it again. MEMO: Jennifer Davis McDaid works at the Virginia State Library and Archives
in Richmond. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket design by ROYCE BECKER
by CNB