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Isabel's Bed

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

When Harriet Mahoney first saw it, Isabel Krug's bed was covered in sheared sheep and littered with celebrity biographies. The unpublished, fortyish, and recently jilted Harriet had fled wintry Manhattan in response to a mysterious ad in the New York Review of Books: "Book in progress? Why not share my Cape Cod retreat? Roomy and peaceful—your life will be your own."

In a room with a view atop a Truro dune, Harriet starts on a different path to fulfillment by ghostwriting The Isabel Krug Story, based on the sexy blonde's tabloid past—specifically, a nasty night in Greenwich, Connecticut, when Guy Van Vleet died and Isabel lived to tell about it. Unusually talented in the man department, Isabel revamps and inspires Harriet as they gear up to tell all. Life according to Isabel is a soap-opera extravaganza, an experience to be swallowed whole—and the attitude is catching.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 29, 1996
      Lipman's romantic comedy concerns true love, female friendship and the writing life.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      ISABEL'S BED is an upbeat story about writer Harriet Mahoney's adventures as ghost writer for Isabel Krug, the other woman in a disastrous love triangle. Set on Cape Cod and in New York City, the story includes many zany and unique characters Harriet comes in contact with. Enthusiastically read by the author, this audiobook is well paced and enjoyable. Elinor Lipman has a light, airy style, and her voice is upbeat as she skips jauntily through the narrative. A.A.B. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 27, 1995
      When her live-in lover of 12 years tells her he's marrying someone else, Harriet Mahoney, a writer of unpublished stories ``about love between quiet people'' answers an ad for a ghostwriter. She moves from Manhattan to Cape Cod, into a lavish, ultramodern house on the dunes near Truro, where she will work on her novel about her parents' marriage while ghosting the story of the decidedly unquiet Isabel Krug, whose claim to fame is having been the other woman in a celebrated murder case. (Isabel, who was in bed with her rich lover when his wife shot him in the heart, became star witness in the much-publicized trial.) With her trademark, light comic touch Lipman (The Way Men Act) unfolds her narrative, revealing the gradual effect of Isabel's flamboyant lifestyle (her bed is covered in eggplant colored shearling) on Harriet's worldview, and on Harriet's career. The appealing supporting cast includes Isabel's eccentric artist husband, Costas, also in residence; Harriet's former lover, who owns a bagel deli in TriBeCa; and Isabel's handyman Pete, a native Cape Codder. The unexpected ending offers a just-right finish to this wry, warm story of about love and those who practice it. Literary Guild selection; author tour.

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  • English

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