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Laura Lippman is fast, fun and a good writer
Book Review
By Derryll White
Lippman, Laura (2008). Hardly Knew Her.
I have never read Laura Lippman, although I have now discovered she is widely published. Why? She’s fast, fun and a very good writer. I just never ran across her until she was included in a book of short stories I read.
“Hardly Knew Her” is Lippman’s first book of short stories (she has done six) with a novella ‘Scratch A Woman,’ included. She is in love with her chosen city, Baltimore, and throughout the stories imbues it with a vibrant glow.
The collection opens with a bang. ‘The Crack Cocaine Diet’ moves very quickly, surprises the reader and definitely creates an immediate desire for more Lippman.
‘Femme Fatale’ pushes a number of boundaries – age and femininity foremost. Think of a 68-year-old woman creating space in the adult film industry rather than in a seniors complex. Lippman knows how the feminine mind works and what a woman’s needs are. She puts it all on paper in a most titillating and delicious way.
The author is immediate, keeping her stories quick, alive and vibrant. As one character asks, “Who needs post-mortem devotion?” These women know how to take what they want. And the woman in ‘Black-Eyed Susan’ takes it all – in spades. Lippman likes to surprise the reader.
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LIFE – Their lives were hard, but that only increased their capacity for joy. They played because it was fun, because they were adept at it. She watched the softball soar to the outfield again and again, where it was almost always caught. Muchacho, muchacho, muchacho. The centre fielder had an amazing arm, capable of throwing out a runner who tried to score from third on a long fly ball. And all the players were fast, wiry and quick, drunk as six-year-olds on their own daring.
BALTIMORE – She inhales deeply, a little raggedly; even Monaghan isn’t so fit that the climb has left her unaffected. She seems drunker now than she did at the bottom, giddy with emotion. She throws open her arms as if to embrace the whole city.
“I mean, really,” she says, “why would anyone live anywhere else?”
MARRIAGE – Meghan will marry again. The thought surprises her, for she knows that her next marriage will, in fact, have all the frustrations and irritations of her first. She has no illusions about the institution’s limits, about what it takes to live with another person. But – big but – she will be the widow of a beloved man. Her next husband will live in the shadow of dead Brian’s perfection and her eternal frailty. Her next husband will be permanently on notice, and she won’t have to say a thing. No pick up your socks, why are you late again, please rinse out the basin after you gargle and spit. She will simply look at her next husband – two years sounds about right – widen her eyes, and he will fold. It’s like rock, scissors, paper, and widow trumps everything.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
