we mostly get along fine, and our division of labor is fair: cook and dishwasher, optimist and pessimist

Book Review

 

Rating: **** 

 

Title: Every Tom, Dick & Harry

 

Author: Elinor Lipman

 

Published: Harper, 2025; I listened to the unabridged audiobook (HarperAudio 2025, 9 hours)

 

Main idea:

    Taking over her parents’ estate-sale business is not the life’s work that Emma Lewis bargained for. Yes, she grew up helping them empty people’s nests, but nothing prepared her for her biggest and stickiest “get”—the grand, beautiful house of ill repute masquerading as a decidedly beddable B and B. Should Emma turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because they are shady, escort-y, and proud of it? 

    No. A girl must make a living. 

    Around some hairpin turns, Lipman ingeniously reveals a straight shot to happiness.

What are the relationships like between characters?  Emma has supportive parents and a female friend. Along the way, she launches a close relationship with a former teacher, and also with a former classmate. 

 

Favorite part of the story: I related to Emma as an arguably over-educated and under-ambitious woman, struggling to find her purpose.

 

What do you think about the way it was written? Every word that Elinor Lipman has ever written is well worth reading. I have read all of her novels and essays—most recently, I worked through her entire book list, in order—and I own all but one of them. Her writing is neat, accessible, and consistently produces a good mood. In other words: I love the way it was written!

 

Was the book entertaining, educational, amusing...? Entertaining, for sure, and amusing. There were some laugh-out-loud scenes (if you're the sort of person who can be inspired to laugh out loud while reading, which I am). It is also thoughtful, a book that made me pause periodically to ponder the story's application to my own life. 

 

If you recommend this book, to whom is it suited? I recommend this book, without reservation, to: readers of fiction; people who enjoy "women's fiction" (which, y'know, isn't really a genre any more than "men's fiction" would be, but here we are anyway); lovers of the northeastern U.S.; and, particularly, to readers with familiarity and interest in what I would term 'resale culture', consisting of estate sales, online re-selling, and so forth. 

    I also recommend my (current) favorites of her other books: The Inn at Lake Devine (1998), The View from Penthouse B (2013), and especially The Dearly Departed (2001).

 

[review template adapted from here; the title quotation is by Elinor Lipman, from The View From Penthouse B]