Customer Reviews

Ladies' Man

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I am an Elinoir Lipman fan. I enjoyed this book, especially the end. All of the sister's had to take a hard look at themselves. They had bought into their parent's world and the ideas and standards of that time, and it was this world that prevented them from living their lives to the fullest. How many of us reach fifty and realize we have been living someone else's version of what life is and not our own. Nash Harvey is the man many a female has run into in a vunerable moment. We want to believe it is love and that last chance for it only to have our dreams smashed back to reality after we have been taken for the fool. I found this to be enjoyable summer reading with more meat to the story and character development then other books designated as women's summer reading. I became engrossed in the lives of the characters and the story held my attention. I would recommend this to women to read. it addresses a vulnerable side of the female sex that they don't always want to show. It speaks of the relationships among sisters and the need for friends to sustain us through the hard times and laugh with us.

I loved the Dobbin sisters and their quirky attitudes toward life. That they're all still sharing an apartment together 30 years after Harvey Nash (now Nash Harvey)dumped oldest sister, Adele, on the evening of their engagement is perfect irony. From their setting up empty glass bottles inside their apartment door as an inexpensive burglar alarm to the surprising love lives of each of them, you can't help but fall in love with this unusual family. Nash Harvey is the character you love to hate, who picks up women at the drop of a hat, and has never once committed to anything but his reflection in the mirror. He tries his charms on each of the sisters and the results are hilarious. Great book and wonderful, sassy characters!!!!

Once again, Elinor Lipman has created a funny, light story about women--in this case, three sisters whose lives are disrupted when the ex-fiance returns thirty years after abandoning Adele, the eldest. Lipman has created a thoroughly believable--and detestable--anti-hero in Nash Harvey/Harvey Nash, a rogue who sponges off women and never seems to understand that he is not nearly as charming as he thinks he is. Readers who enjoy peering into the private lives of mature women will appreciate the sisters' struggles to deal with Nash and with their own middle-of-life romances and lack thereof. Real, fully developed characters and a speedy plot make this a read-in-a-sitting romantic comedy.

This is only the 2nd book I've read by Elinor Lipman, but it certainly won't be the last. This one is even better than the other one I read, The Inn at Lake Devine. It is definitely funnier and kept me turning pages.

The Ladies' Man is set in Boston and tells the story of the three Dobbins sisters, Adele, Lois and Kathleen, all set in spinsterhood, and Nash Harvey, the man who dumped Adele on the night of their engagement party 30 years before. It seems Nash can't move forward in his life (relationship or otherwise) without first mending ways with Adele. So he leaves his girlfriend in California, flies to Boston (and of course, makes a date with Cynthia, his plane-mate), and shows up on Adele's doorstop out of the clear blue. Thing is, Adele is not willing to forgive him. Regardless, Nash's stay in Boston has an effect on her as well as her sisters and brother, Richard, in different and funny ways. And of course, Nash's "Ladies' Man" ways are evident from the very first page.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a simple story, but very interesting and fun to see what would happen next. I recommend The Ladies' Man as a quick, light read and one that will no doubt entertain readers 100 percent. Will be reading more by Elinor, guaranteed!

Lipman is a charming and funny writer who is full of wit and verbal sparkle. From its magnetic first sentence to its ingenious climax, this is a superbly entertaining book.

The Dobbin sisters, attractive red-headed spinsters Adele, Lois and Kathleen, live together in relative harmony until Adele's ex-fiance, the incorrigible, debonair and pathologically unreliable Nash Harvey, makes a sudden reappearance on their doorstep. But Nash soon finds out that scorned women do not make gracious hostesses. Yet the re-appearance of Nash Harvey, who deserted Adele Dobbin 30 years ago on the evening of their engagement party, throws the lives of the Dobbin sisters into disarray. Not only is Adele confused and upset, Lois has always had a crush on Nash, and now skittishly dyes her hair blonde.

My only concern with The Ladies' Man was that the narrative was in present tense. This took some adjusting to, and distracted me from the story too often. However, don't let that put you off, because The Ladies' Man is still a delightful novel for when you are in the mood for something light-hearted and cheerful.

I am reading The Ladies Man very, very slowly, because I don't want to lose it. I want to be always by my bedside, in case of emergency -- like a revolver. Her way with dialogue and character is simply a joy - I fully agree with the comparisons to Austen. Lipman has adroitly nailed the archetype of the diehard, attention-and-heat-seeking-missile-bachelor to perfection. As a novel it is nimble, sustaining, and frankly delicious. In the place I am at in the book, the veal cassarole has just come down on Harvey's head, and he is playing it for all it is worth --can he get some sex out of this?- you can hear him calculating, as gravy slides down his forehead. Great scene. I can't wait to see what happens, and yet I am also loathe to see it end. Divine, and certainly worth every penny.

The characters in The Ladies' Man are quite enchanting. The story has the kind of charm that should sweeten up the toughest reader out there.

Having failed as a jingle composer, Nash Harvey, a heartbreaking womanizer, reappears in the lives of the Dobbin sisters. This wouldn't be so hard if he hadn't disappeared on the night he was celebrating his engagement to Adele Dobbin. Why is he back after thirty years? Does it have anything to do with the fact that he is now a middle-aged lonely man? One thing is certain though: the Dobbin sisters will never be the same.

This is a very cute and charming romantic comedy that should be saved for those times in which you are in the mood for something light and breezy. Let's face it, every reader should indulge in something pleasantly light from time to time. And you can never go wrong with Elinor Lipman.

Elinor Lipman is concerned with second chances. In her previous romance, The Way Men Act, she described the slow and accidental re-union of a divorcee with the high school flame she never wed. In The Ladies' Man she puts this basic question of whether it's possible to go back in a more complicated frame. Harvey Nash, the professional romancer of the title, follows the trade of commercial jingles composer and returns to Boston fleeing his West coast live-in lover, Dina, whose modeling career has given way to a commercial practice massaging feet. The woman he abandoned, failing to turn up to their engagement party thirty years earlier, is Adelle Dobbin, also encumbered - by two sisters, Lois and Kathleen, both also single. It is Lipman's endeavour to explore not only the damage which Harvey's breach of faith did to the marriageability of all three, but also how his re-appearance in their lives unexpectedly jarrs them back into motion, a bowling ball among the cob-webbed skittles.

Adelle fundraises for non commercial TV, Lois (the middle one) works for the Employment Office and Kathleen owns a lingerie boutique whose doorman, Lorenz, she flirts with and finally dates in the flurry of Harvey's return. (He arrives at midnight, flirts with all three in turn, and moves Kathleen to break a casserole over his head.) The doorman's building also contains Cynthia John, a financial consultant Harvey seduces on the plane East, who throws a music recital to show him off (a masterful scene of music snobs volte facing into success worshipping applause at Harvey's one ubiquitous coffee ad refrain). The initial charm and inexplicability of Harvey's relentless boyish seduction is gradually stripped away by Lipman's gaze - he emptied Dina's bank account on the way from LA but calls her to forward the residual payment cheques which are his only income. The scene of Nash Harvey (his professionally reversed name) inspecting the dilapidated parental home he first left Boston to flee, reduced to staying there rent free if he is to stay at all, is quietly fierce, as is the scene of Adelle breaking down in the changing room of her sister's shop: "Dell, are you alright?" "No," she says softly. But these scenes are always harnessed to comedy, as Harvey's vengeful ex Cynthia walks into the store, as Adelle's remembered one sexual encounter was with a randy academic whose pedagogic urge leads him to view his member as a teaching aide. These scenes are ruefully funny, a bitter undercurrent to the frothy shake of Lipman's style, making her books a smooth but satisfying brew.

Lipman's gems in this book are the minor characters: Lorenz the doorman's traditional father who thinks Kathleen is too good to sleep around with and won't vacate the apartment, Adelle's shy station boss admirer Marty whose sexual harassment paranoia and self-doubts she deftly hits, the boyish deputy Sherrif brother Richard Dobbin, whose reflexive picking up on waitresses is a less exploitative counterpart to Harvey, part of Lipman's ongoing project shaking her head at men's odd ways. Her one failure is Byron Sprock, the passing playwright Dina conjugates with, whose glibness is too close to Harvey's with no grain of depth, perhaps why Dina wants to get her ladies' man returned. The exquisite handling of the plot's spinning plates never let you feel much will ever fall out of hand, but Lipman's acid eye won't let you think she's been too kind or glib while sending Harvey on his way. Stern in its judgements but kind to its readers and characters, it is a wise and easy book to read.

It is hard to believe this was written by Elinor Lipman. There is something sinister - or mean-spirited about it. It portrays women as silly and desperate...I had a difficult time liking any of the characters, I didn't know what to wish for. I definitely DO NOT recommend it. Try any other Lipman book instead.

I thoroughly enjoyed this lively, witty and funny book by Elinor Devine. Some may carp about the plausibility of three sisters living together - I would say that the world of the Dobbin sisters is one that many of us would envy!

Revolving around the irresponsible, incorrigible and irrascible Harvey Nash - a womanizer extroidainaire - Ladies Man manages to transcend the easy route to making him a villian - instead, the self-aware reader cannot help but chuckle as the women in Harvey's life manage to make fools of themselves ( Been there, bear the scars, ladies????...).

With affection, humor and a keen eye for the over-40 single life, Ms. Lipman takes the reader on a whirlwind of raised-dsahed-raised expectations - and a lovely ride it is!!!