My Latest Grievance [Paperback]

Elinor Lipman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2007

My Latest Grievance stars the beguiling teenager Frederica Hatch, the "Eloise of Dewing College." Born and raised in the dormitory of this small women's college and chafing under the care of "the most annoyingly evenhanded parental team in the history of civilization," Frederica is starting to feel that her life is stiflingly snug. That all changes with the arrival on campus of a new dorm mother, the glamorous Laura Lee French, the frenetic center of her own universe.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Frederica Hatch—the articulate, curious, and naïve narrator of Lipman's eighth novel—proves the perfect vehicle for this satiric yet compassionate family portrait. It's 1976, and psych professors David and Aviva Hatch are honest with their daughter to the point of anatomically correcting Frederica's Barbie dolls. In all their years as a dorm family at a small women's college outside Boston, though, no one mentioned Laura Lee French, David's first wife (and distant cousin). Frederica, now 15 and ready for rebellion, delights in Laura's arrival on campus as a new dorm mother; David and Aviva look on nervously as the two become fast friends. In contrast with Frederica's right-thinking, '60s radical parents, Laura Lee becomes the delicious embodiment of all the moral and psychological complexities of a flawed world beyond campus. Meanwhile, campus itself looks very little like an ivory tower as major scandal brews amid petty gossip. As in previous novels, Lipman addresses sensitive issues (anti-Semitism, adultery, dementia) with delicacy and acerbity. She also nails the shifts and moods of an angry teenager, a grandmother in denial, a philanderer in hiding and a campus in shock. By the end, a smart young girl learns compassion for a world that can be grotesquely, hilariously, disturbingly unfair. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Elinor Lipman's eighth novel (after The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, **** Sept/Oct 2003) exhibits her trademark social satire, facility with dialogue, and humor. Like her other novels, it addresses themes close to the heart: the bonds between parents and children and between fiction and reality. Covering a few decades, the novel offers a smart, funny protagonist and outlandish, if highly realistic, situations. Yet while the Seattle Times called the novel Lipman's "best work so far" and the Washington Post couldn't praise the author enough, the Chicago Tribune felt that Lipman's wit masked genuine emotion. Only USA Today thought the novel descended into poorly plotted melodrama. The general consensus, however, is that My Latest Grievance is worth a reader's every second.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618872353
• ISBN-13: 978-0618872350
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,002,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elinor Lipman started writing fiction by night while working at a teachers' magazine by day. Her first book, INTO LOVE AND OUT AGAIN, was published in 1987; its centerpiece was seven connected stories, novella-length, which gave her the courage to try a novel. THEN SHE FOUND ME came out in 1990 (18 years later it was adapted into a feature film), followed by THE WAY MEN ACT, ISABEL'S BED, THE INN AT LAKE DEVINE, THE LADIES' MAN, THE DEARLY DEPARTED, THE PURSUIT OF ALICE THRIFT, MY LATEST GRIEVANCE and most recently, THE FAMILY MAN. Her honors include the New England Book Award and The Poetry Center's Fiction Prize. She divides her time between leafy western Massachusetts and New York City, and tries to write 500 words per day no matter the location. She and her husband have one son, who lives in Los Angeles and explains the movie business to his mother as needed. She knits, follows politics, cooks, and walks, but not enthusiastically.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A major disappointment, July 18, 2006

By 

Richard L. Goldfarb (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Latest Grievance (Hardcover)

I was reluctant to write this review, because I'm a huge fan of Lipman's novels and, as I have written elsewhere, think "The Inn at Lake Devine" was one of the best novels of the last decade of the 20th century. Furthermore, I was excited about the premise of this novel, the "Eloise of a women's college" idea.

The plot is thin. Frederica is the child of the Marshalsea (an obvious allusion Lipman misses) for a women's college in Brookline, Mass. Her parents are faculty members who have served as house parents since before she was born; they have no car, and fight the school administration as union activists. Into their lives comes Laura Lee French, who turns out to be David Hatch's ex-wife and cousin, of whose existence Frederica was entirely unaware. Then Laura Lee becomes a house mother on campus, and seduces the new president of the college, causing his wife to attempt suicide and become an invalid. During the great snow of 1978, the plot resolves.

There are good things here. The character of Frederica herself is interesting and charming. The conflict between her labor agitator parents and the anachronistic women's college (formerly a secretarial school) in the late 70's, rings true. So too are the glimpses we see of Frederica's social life, such as it was, at Brookline High School, and the obvious limitations caused by living on a college campus and having parents who don't own a car. The best part of the book was the allegedly democratic way in which Frederica is raised, which is a transparent means by which her parents, and her mother in particular, manipulate her.

The main problem I had with the book was with the engine for the plot, her father's ex-wife and cousin Laura Lee French. To me, Laura Lee enters the novel with the label "literary device" so firmly attached to her forehead I couldn't see past it. Laura Lee, it turns out, is the cause of the family's living on campus, because she has been living off David's alimony since he left her for Aviva, Frederica's mom. David's mother has always preferred her to Aviva. Her own mother and David's mother are close. Yet somehow her very existence was hidden from Frederica for all those years, years during which, it would seem to me, liberal labor activists' views on divorce would have gone through such a transformation as to make the entire story trivial to their daughter. Instead, it is treated like a state secret, making Laura Lee's advent at the college even more of a temptation to Frederica.

The other thing that bothered me about this book is that people always seem to be talking in speeches, not dialogue, and they tend to share what I think were unlikely views of marriage, divorce and sex for the time and the place (in the interests of full disclosure, I was living about five miles away at the time the book took place). Where is the person to say "divorce? who cares?" or "so they're sleeping together, big deal?" This was 1978, the eye of the hurricane between the advent of the pill and the discovery of HIV, the one real time where free love seemed to have no consequences. This book takes place in a women's college in one of the most liberal towns in America at exactly this moment in history, and (despite the hints about what the students themselves are doing), I simply don't recognize the time or the place in this novel.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A diamond in the rough-not Elinor Lipman at her best-but close to it, April 26, 2006

By 

Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: My Latest Grievance (Hardcover)

As a devoted fan of the divine Ms. Elinor Lipman I was a little disappointed with this novel-at first. In the early chapters, which are all background and setting information I thought there was no plot. And in fact, through much of the book, I still thought there was no plot. But then I remembered what I liked about Elinor Lipman.

She tells stories. Real stories like someone would tell to a friend about this crazy/amazing/totally ordinary thing that happened in their life. My first read of hers was Isabel's Bed-which basically has no plot. It's a story-and stories don't need a real plot. They just tell what happens.

So she takes these stories and twists them with an often hilarious narrative point of view. This author does not deserve to be classified as a beach read-she writes real novels. Why is it that ever enjoyable book is stigmatized in some way? I love what Ms. Lipman writes-and no matter what others think I think she deserves awards for it.

The title of the book is not what it seems. Grievance in this setting means a complaint to a union about contractual obligations. In 1978 Frederica Hatch is the 16 year old daughter of two union rabble rising professors-and she's lived her whole life as the campus darling in a dorm apartment. Then, along comes Laura Lee, her father's first, dancing non union, wife-and everything gets stirred up.

This book is a little like a diamond in the rough-it needs some polishing. There are too many chapters that don't advance the story and too many assumptions on behalf of the narrator, some parts are even boring. But other than that this is what Lipman does best-a first person narrative of something that happened to them-told as it would be to a friend.

Four point five stars.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing and generous, April 16, 2006

By 

Sinead NiC "American & Irish expat" (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Latest Grievance (Hardcover)

I thought this novel was excellent, keeping me up way too late on several nights that I really shouldn't have stayed up! The story unfolded in a believable way and the characters reminded me of people I know and universities where I lived and studied. Lipman's quick mind shows itself in the things she DOESN'T spell out. In this respect, the dialogue is particularly entertaining. Really wonderful - I hope you like it, too!