SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E15
Summer Books 2022BY ELINOR LIPMANSummer 1961
My dad, an avid reader and
devoted patron of my hometown
library, makes a special request of
the director: Could we take books
out for the whole summer — for as
much as 10 weeks? The answer
was yes, not that I understood the
need. Our vacations were never
longer than two weeks, and al-
ways the first half of July, when
the factories he visited as a sales-
man of things like cardboard tub-
ing and rubber bands were
closed.
We packed an abundance of
hardcovers (Dad thought paper-
back books were abridged) in the
trunk of our Rambler, and set out
from our Lowell, Mass., home for
a modest knotty-pine cabin in
Brandon, Vt. My mother favored
mysteries by British Common-
wealth women, especially Ngaio
Marsh. My dad was on a Sinclair
Lewis kick. I’d picked the hefty,
complete short stories of O. Hen-
ry and read them all.
Did a few themes lodge them-
selves in my subconscious that
summer? Did William Sydney Por-
ter’s style predispose me to write
stories that wrapped up? I know of
one thing that stuck: Before secur-
ing our cabin at Oak Hill Lodge,
the Lipmans had been turned
down by the nearby Lake Dun-
more Hotel, its phony-polite letter
noting that “the people who re-
turn year after year, and feel most
comfortable here, are gentiles.”
The insult incubated for 35 years
before it led me into my third
novel, “The Inn at Lake Devine.”Summer 1967
I have a summer job at Pellon
Corp. in Lowell, manufacturer of
a nonwoven interfacing known
only to tailors and others who
sewed. From 7 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., I
glued labels to the end of bolts.
At night, I labored through a
summer reading list, assigned
by Miss Helen Shea, for my up-
coming senior year in A.P. Eng-
lish at Lowell High: “Crime and
Punishment,” “Bleak House” and
the essays of George Orwell. My
co-workers were reading Boston
sports pages during breaks be-
cause the Red Sox were heading
toward their first American
League pennant since 1946. I
was a new but avid fan who
wanted to read the Record
American during lunch, not
Dostoevsky.Summer 1991
My son, Ben, is 10, and though
an early reader, not an avid one.
Nor is he keen on day camp. We
strike a deal: If he reads 25 chap-
ter books, I’d take him to what my
husband called Ben’s spiritual
home, Riverside Park in Agawam,
Mass. (rebranded Six Flags New
England in 2000), a half-hour
from our Northampton home. No
child has ever read faster, which is
not a brag. Yes, he devoured
books, but the way contestants
inhale hot dogs to win Nathan’s
annual July Fourth contest at Co-
ney Island. I’d imagined a whole
summer of his being occupied,
but it was still June. I moved the
goal post: 25 more books and I’d
take one of his friends, too. He
didn’t argue; it was better than
getting on a bus to camp. Again:not pleasure-reading but speed-
reading. Good on my word, I take
Ben and a buddy to Riverside
Park. Seven years later, he wrote
his college essay on his roller
coaster obsession. I remember
only one sentence because I had
doubts about it: He attributed his
need to be an adventurous and
brave 10-year old to his otherwise
“seat-belted and veal-like up-
bringing.” I wasn’t offended, but
was worried “veal” might be polit-
ically incorrect. “Leave it,” said an
author-friend and former editor.Summer 2008
As a judge for the National
Book Awards, I have 200-plus
books to read. It is an unsatisfy-
ing summer — not the books but
the experience. We are five judg-
es, four of whom often see eye to
eye, with me frequently the dis-
senter. But, who was right? I
loved “Olive Kitteridge” by Eliza-
beth Strout, on my list of top five
books, but on no one else’s. Then
— excuse me! — a few months
later it wins the Pulitzer Prize just
after being named a finalist for
the National Book Critics Circle
Award.
Also left on the cutting room
floor was Philip Roth’s “Indigna-
tion,” another favorite of mine
that didn’t make the top five. Two
years later, I met Roth at a book
party. I went on and on about how
I’d stood up for “Indignation,”
fought for it, had waged war
against Peter Matthiessen’s win-
ning “Shadow Country,” a compi-
lation of three previously pub-
lished novels, for God’s sake. He
listened patiently. When I fin-
ished my nattering, he smiled afaint, ironic smile. “I took it like a
man,” he said.Summer 2009
I do a reduced book tour for my
ninth novel, “The Family Man,”
because my husband is declining
quickly from frontotemporal de-
mentia. I find comfort in “The No.
1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” and
two more in the series by Alexan-
der McCall Smith. The only other
book I remember reading that
summer was a memoir by a man
whose wife had died of the same
disease my husband had. On vis-
its to the nursing home, the hus-
band-author wrestled with his
wife in the shower, trying to dye
her hair. What? Why struggle?
Whose vanity? My husband died
at home in September, completely
sweet and cooperative, complete-
ly diminished. No struggles ex-
cept for the million daily heart-
breaks.Summer 2011
My next novel’s protagonist is a
widow. Halfway through the
book, I put her on Match.com to
get her out of the house. I put
myself on Match, too, for research
and verisimilitude. On the day I
decide to quit, I click on a geo-
graphically desirable candidate —
he’s living on the Upper West Side
of New York; I’m in Midtown. I
scroll down his profile. Under
“last book read,” I am shocked to
see, “Elinor Lipman’s ‘The Family
Man,’ ” and then “it’s NOT chick
lit.”
On our first date, Jonathan had
with him “The Imperfectionists,”
by Tom Rachman, which I’d been
meaning to read. He said he’dgotten it in his building’s laundry
room lending library, organized
by a retired librarian. Pointing to
the small white sticker on the
book’s spine, Jonathan noted the
economical cataloguing system,
just “Fic,” and nothing more. We
both laughed. I found his appreci-
ation of that minimalist Dewey
Decimal system endearing. We
are still together.Summer 2022
I have two grandsons. Their
dad, my son, reported that his
3-year-old randomly plucked
“The Inn at Lake Devine” off the
bookshelf, probably because of its
pretty blue cover. He opened it.
Not a picture book, nothing but
type. Oh wait, a photo in the back.
He stared. How can this be?
Amazed, he yelped, “Bubbe!”
Ben and my daughter-in-law
text me photos of the two little
boys absorbed in books I’ve sent.
“Freight Train,” by Donald Crews
(1978); “Bedtime,” by Helen Oxen-
bury (1982); their dad’s ancient,
taped-together “Let’s Eat,” by Gyo
Fujikawa, now out of print. And
Jonathan’s gift, his favorite chil-
dren’s book, loved by his now-
grown sons, “Mike Mulligan and
his Steam Shovel,” by Virginia Lee
Burton, first published in 1939.
How wonderful: 83 years ago and
still in print, still being treasured
and visited. I can’t say the same
for the restricted Lake Dunmore
Hotel. It closed its doors more
than 50 years ago, never to be
opened again.Elinor Lipman’s next novel, “Ms.
Demeanor,” will be published in
February.Elinor Lipman and a season p acked with readingThe author shares how the habit persists from year to year and gets handed down from generation to generationPHOTOS COURTESY OF MICHAEL BENABIB AND ELINOR LIPMAN’S FAMILY; WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATIONFrom left, Elinor Lipman “the summer I worked at Pellon Corp., as a rising high school senior”; L ipman now; Lipman w ith her dad, 1960; her husband, Bob, “with our son, Ben, a year before Bob died in 2009.”
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