Fancy Meeting You - by Louise Marburg (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A middle-aged woman's unlikely and hilarious tardy coming-of-age.

Meet Laura Harrigan. Depending on who Laura is talking to, she's a psychiatrist, a business consultant, or a mother of twin boys at Yale. That last one is a new lie she's trying on for size. In reality, Laura is middle-aged, childless, "involuntarily unmarried," and works a job far beneath her capabilities. She is a graduate of Harvard, but as she notes, "Meeting other people's expectations is something I am famously unable to do." Most nights, Laura can be found at Baltimore's least-glamorous dive, The Chicken Box, where the bartender knows when to call her an Uber. At the weekend, she might be hooking up with a care home aide at her elderly father's birthday party, much to the chagrin of her uptight sister, Nadine.

The story follows Laura in her home in Baltimore and elsewhere through her fiftieth year. Each chapter marks her encounter with a new character--a family member or two, a potential lover, complete strangers-each offering their own brand of wisdom or judgement or wacky opinion. Somehow, through these entanglements, Laura begins to gather bits and pieces of the self-knowledge she is lacking. Most, if not all, coming-of-age stories are about young people, but this is a middle-aged coming-of-age.

Review Quotes

"Oh, how delicious: a funny, flawed, entirely sympathetic main character who's her own worst influence. The writing is so good, the descriptions so keen-eyed, that I often thought, "I wish I could do that." Fancy Meeting You is all at once tenderhearted and wickedly wry. Brava, Louise Marburg!" --Elinor Lipman, Every Tom, Dick & Harry and Ms. Demeanor

"Fancy Meeting You is a smart, funny, high-speed romp with a heroine who will keep you perched and ready for anything. With impeccable comic timing, Louise Marburg also has the daring to skate as close as possible to life's dark edges, sometimes bringing us to that suspenseful place of wondering: do I laugh or do I cry?" --Jill McCorkle, Old Crimes and Hieroglyphics

"Fancy meeting Laura Harrigan, a sharp-witted prevaricator partying like there's no tomorrow. Can this perceptive woman break free from her emotional armor? Marburg's shrewd novel explores the intersection of society and loneliness and one woman's search for meaning in a fractured world." --Elizabeth McKenzie, The Dog of the North and The Portable Veblen

Praise for Marburg's last story collection:

"Marburg's characters find themselves in lives they don't quite recognize, searching for signposts that can lead them forward or tell them who they are... These characters are as quirky as they are full of heart. Even in the thralls of defeat, these stories traffic in hope."--Brenda Peynado, The New York Times

"Delightfully jaded wisdom buoys You Have Reached Your Destination...even the seemingly whimsical carries the weight of truth."--Daphne Kalotay, The Washington Post

About the Author

Louise Marburg is the author of three collections of stories, the most recent being You Have Reached Your Destination, which was favorably reviewed in the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has been published in such journals as Story, The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, and many others. Marburg studied design at the Kansas City Art Institute, is a graduate of New York University's Gallatin Division, and holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University's School of the Arts. She has been a scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference and a fellow at the Kenyon Writing Workshops, and her work has been supported by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A native of Baltimore, she lives in New York City with her husband, the artist Charles Marburg. Fancy Meeting You is her first novel.