When Nash Harvey, incurable womaniser and failing jingle composer, arrives at the Boston home of the Dobbin sisters, he is struck with a casserole dish. Not surprising, considering that Nash, onetime fiancé of Adele Dobbin, disappeared on the night of their engagement party, 30 years ago.
Fresh from a failed romance with a Californian reflexologist, Nash brings chaos to the Dobbins, all of whom have settled into a weary spinsterhood. Unintentionally, he leads everyone he meets to a truer knowledge of themselves, and the possibilities of a brighter future. Five distinct, but masterfully interwoven tales of the heart spin around the central, hilariously desperate mission of Nash, a man seeking to escape the inescapable.
Lipman writes with the wry authority of a latter-day Jane Austen or Henry James. Her work ripples with startling segues into the perversities of male-female relationships. Yet for all this insight, her characters are drawn with companionable warmth. This is not a book about the bold and the beautiful. Her cast inhabits a twilight of TV dinners, greying hair and disastrous dates, yet they never lose their hope, or their capacity for love. A gourmet casserole of a book--drama, humour and understanding in equally generous portions. -- Matthew Baylis