Lily White [Hardcover]

Susan Isaacs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1996

In Susan Isaac's most ambitious and dazzling novel to date, we are introduced to Lee White, a criminal defense lawyer practicing on Long Island. Into her life drifts Norman Torkelson, a career con man charged with strangling to death his latest mark. At first, as Lee explains to us, the case seems routine, the evidence overwhelming. Norman--manly, magnetic and morally reprehensible--is a man who crisscrosses America looking for patsies for his cruel marriage scam: Love 'em, liquidate their assets, leave 'em. Clearly, he murdered Bobette Frisch, the dumpy, sour 50-something bar owner who had fallen madly in love with him. But just as Lee is resigning herself to the inevitable "Guilty!" verdict, she begins to have doubts. What, after all, was Norman's motive? Why not do what he had done for the last 20 years: run and leave behind a broke and brokenhearted victim? Lee starts to wonder if her client is not only not guilty but also covering for the real killer and, in doing so, performing the first selfless act of his life.

As the Torkelson case unfolds, a second narrator chimes in to tell us the story behind the story: the tale of Lee's life. Born Lily White, Lee is a smart, pretty and privileged child coming of age on Long Island. Her parents have little time for her or her younger sister, devoted as they are to the pursuit of shallowness. Her mother, Sylvia, who looks like Lauren Bacall's twin sister with a mild eating disorder, is busy with the exhausting work of keeping up her wardrobe. Her father, Leonard Weissberg--Weiss--and finally White, is consumed by his chi-chi Manhattan fur salon, his model-bookkeeper mistress, and his obsession with the family next door, the old-money, oh-so-social Taylors.

When Lee marries Jazz Taylor, the scion of these blue-bloods, her life seems blessed. Suddenly she has her mother's approval, her father's love--and a sublime husband. No matter that she has to give up her dream job in the Manhattan DA's Office to move back to Long Island with him; that's what marriage is, a series of compromises made in the name of love. Isn't it?

Lily White masterfully interweaves the depths of deception surrounding the twisted Torkelson case with the stunning betrayals that devastate Lee's own life. With the characteristic intelligence and delicious, razor-sharp wit displayed in her previous bestsellers, such as After All These Years and Compromising Positions, Susan Isaacs has crafted an extraordinary novel about social mobility -- about what is phony and what is real. Lily White is the seamlessly executed story of the crimes committed in the name of the good life and the victims of these violations: Those like Bobette, who do not survive, those whose spirits are crushed, and the few, like Lee, who fight back--and find something better.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Susan Isaac's seventh novel is the first story of Lee White, a criminal lawyer on Long Island ensnared with a con man accused of murder. Lee is a privileged, Jewish baby-boomer, whose parents changed their name to White before her birth and then named her Lily. Her family's rise to unhappiness is directly related to their rise to affluence, and Lily tries repeatedly to liberate herself to prove herself as a wife, a daughter, a parent, and a lawyer. Though she struggles with self-doubt, Lily's strength comes from her ability to acknowledge vulnerability and overcome it. As she unravels the truth, she faces some difficult family truths and solidifies her belief in herself.

From Publishers Weekly

Marjorie Morningstar meets Nancy Drew in Isaacs's latest, which succeeds as both a coming-of-age story and a legal thriller. Her wit honed by familiarity with two milieus she knows well, Isaacs creates a character who moves between the conspicuous consumption of upwardly mobile and dying-to-be-assimilated Jews on Long Island and the criminal justice system (Isaacs's husband is a well-known attorney), where a successful trial lawyer sometimes must defend unsavory clients. These spheres are joined in Lily White, nee Lily Rose Weiss, who narrates the sections of the novel that deal with her defense of oily con man Norman Torkelson and her suspicions that his gorgeous girlfriend actually committed the crime for which he is charged, the murder of a "mark" whom he had fleeced out of thousands of dollars by promising to marry her. Running in tandem are chapters that describe Lily's self-absorbed parents' rise in the world and the ludicrous ways in which they try to fit into WASP society. It's especially ironic that when Lily weds super-WASP Jasper "Jazz" Foster, whom she has adored from childhood, the marriage succumbs to pressures that arise as much from class differences as they do from character. Irony succeeds irony when Jazz declares himself in love with Lily's sister, Robin, Lily's complete antithesis. If it sometimes seems that these parallel narratives should have been two different books, most readers will bond with Lily and gladly switch back and forth between the stages of her life. For on one level, Isaacs has created a pitch-perfect social satire; on another, while the suspense is never spine tingling, she has written a psychological thriller whose portraits of an amoral conman and his mate, of the dehumanizing effects of the prison system and of the stages of a criminal investigation are rendered with snappy authenticity. Literary Guild and Doubleday $250,000 main selections; ad/promo; simultaneous audio; author tour; rights: William Morris Agency.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 459 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (July 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060176075
• ISBN-13: 978-0060176075
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,976,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

First, here's what the critics say::

AFiction done well and done with a difference...A sophisticated storyteller, with a wry view of the world.@ - Washington Post


AJane Austen brought up to date...Highly amusing.@ - Atlantic Monthly


ASusan Isaacs is a witty, wry observer of the contemporary scene.@ - New York Times Book Review

ASardonic humor and dead-on commentary.@ - Houston Chronicle


ASusan Isaacs knows the art of dialogue the way J.S. Bach knew the art of the fugue.@ - Seattle Times


Blockbuster writers tend to be no more than terrific storytellers. Susan Isaacs=s talents go far beyond that. She is a witty, insightful, and elegant writer.@ - Mademoiselle

AI can think of no other novelist--popular or highbrow--who consistently celebrates female gutsiness, brains and sexuality. She=s Jane Austen with a schmear.@ Maureen Corrigan- National Public Radio Fresh Air


AWho....., is our best popular novelist? The nominee for this quarter is Susan Isaacs....[She] is a comic realist, an astute chronicler of contemporary life in the tradition of....Anthony Trollope.@ - Sun Sentinel



Susan's biography

Susan Isaacs, novelist, essayist and screenwriter, was born in Brooklyn and educated at Queens College. She worked as an editorial assistant at Seventeen magazine writing everything from book reviews to advice to the lovelorn. In 1968, Susan married Elkan Abramowitz, then a federal prosecutor. She became a senior editor but left Seventeen in 1970 to stay home with her newborn son, Andrew. Three years later, she gave birth to Elizabeth. During this time she freelanced, writing political speeches as well as magazine articles.

In the mid-seventies, Susan got the urge to write a novel. A year later she began Compromising Positions, a whodunit set on suburban Long Island. It was published in. Her second novel, Close Relations, a love story set against a background of ethnic, sexual and New York Democratic politics (thus a comedy), was published in. Her third, Almost Paradise, was published in 1984. All of Susan's novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Her fiction has been translated into thirty languages.

In 1985, she wrote the screenplay for Paramount's Compromising Positions, which starred Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. She also wrote and co-produced Disney's Hello Again. The 1987 comedy starred Shelley Long and Gabriel Byrne.

Her fourth novel, Shining Through, set during World War II, was published in 1988. The film adaptation starred Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith. Then came Magic Hour January 1991, After All These Years in 1993. Lily White in 1996 and Red, White and Blue in 1998. In 1999, Susan came out with her first work of nonfiction, Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. During 2000, she wrote a series of columns on the presidential campaign for Newsday. Long Time No See, a sequel to Compromising Positions, came out in September 2001. Anyplace I Hang My Hat, was published in 2004. Past Perfect is her eleventh novel.

Susan Isaacs is a recipient of the Writers for Writers Award and the John Steinbeck Award. She serves as chairman of the board of Poets & Writers and is a past president of Mystery Writers of America. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Coalition, PEN, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the International Association of Crime Writers, and the Adams Round Table. Besides writing innumerable book reviews, Susan has also written about politics, film and First Amendment issues. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Con Artists and Lee White, September 22, 2004

By 

MZ (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lily White (Mass Market Paperback)

I picked this book because I thought it sounded like a murder mystery -- a female defense attorney trying to prove her client -- who is probably guilty -- innocent. I thought this book might be comparable to Ed McBain.

This book, however, was more character study than murder mystery, in my opinion. The mystery was still there -- with lots of great twists and turns -- some guessable and some not.

But the thing about Lily White, the book and the person, that made me give the novel 4 stars is that I identified with Lee (AKA Lily White). Sure, Lee is an ambitious attorney. Her family (at first I felt I knew too much about them, but this only made the end that much more heartfelt) is nothing like my own (thankfully loving family). The differences are night and day. And yet, there is something there, some part of Lee, that I would bet is in all of us. By the end of the book, I was cursing those who had wronged and conned Lee White, cheering her new beginning at the end and every struggle she had won.

As this book drew toward the end, I could not put it down! And then, when it ended, I wanted to know what was next for Lee White. I could have read another 500 pages. She had become a real person to me, someone I thought of as a friend.

And that, to me, is the mark of a good book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Beach Book!, June 2, 2000

By 

C. Lacher "armchaircritic" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lily White (Mass Market Paperback)

What a fun book! The New York Times isn't lying when it calls this book "a big, fat happy feast of a book..." It makes the perfect beach, vacation, airplane book (especially those coast-to-coast flights).

The author's slightly sardonic tone works well here and drew me in from the first sentence. How refreshing to identify with a novel's character because she is FALLIBLE in many all-too human ways. The author also deftly meshes the current story with an engrossing and wonderfully written backstory then brings them together wonderfully at the end.

While the heroine is in truth one of those Danielle Steele characters of beauty, brains, and wealth, it takes you a while to figure that out. Her flaws and dysfunctional history make her believable and enjoyable. I never once wanted to BE the heroine, but I sure enjoyed reading about her. Along the way, Isaacs makes some rather interesting observations of what makes a family and what "family" really means, especially in today's society. What an unusual thing to find in a "mass market paperback."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 2 interesting, 2 heartbreaking, 2 books in 1, January 15, 2001

By 

sassi214 (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lily White (Mass Market Paperback)

I read Isaacs' Compromising Positions a fews years back and stumbled across Lily White in the library. (incidentally, i found Compromising to be excellent.) Lily has it all. Suspense, intrique, emotion, laughs. The first time I read this book, I read it like it's written, starting with Lee White as a lawyer who is handling an interesting case while ex-DA office coworkers give her dirty looks for going to "bat for the bad guys". All the goings on of looking into the lives of some very strange people who will con their way out of a paper bag. This storyline gets swapped back and forth every chapter with Lee's parent's marriage, her childhood, her marriage (and ultimately it's demise), leading up to the moment she finds herself secure enough to live a happy-ending life. The style of this book was different and Isaacs takes care to not make it confusing to the reader. Her words are intelligent and the story kept me going til I put it down. A while after I read it through the first time, I picked it up and read every other chapter to follow that story, then went back and read all the opposite chapters. Different tone, but just as delicious. You get more for your money with Lily White.