Ladies' Lunch - by Lore Segal (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Beloved New Yorker writer Lore Segal, at 95-years-old, is a national treasure. Working at the height of her powers, in this story collection she turns her gimlet eye and compassionate humor on aging and life in the slow lane.

From the master of the short short comes a collection of 16 stories featuring old friends who have loved and lunched together for over 40 years. These erudite, sharp-minded nonagenarians offer startling insights into friendship, family and aging.

Can the group organize a visit to one of their number in her new, and detested, assisted living situation? Is this a fabulous party with old friends, or a funeral reception? And does who was sleeping with whom, way back when, still matter?

In story after story, Segal's voice is always hilarious and urbane, heartbreaking and profound, keen and utterly unsentimental, as she tackles aging's affronts.

Review Quotes

"Myserious, mesmerizing ..." --The New York Times

"Segal writes with welcome clarity about life's final years, and if her characters are not always as wise as they think they are, Segal eyes them all with the unsentimental wisdom of a life spent writing wondrous stories and essays, a career spent telling the truth." - Slate

"Reading Ladies' Lunch, one can only be thankful that Segal has not 'thrown away' her people or her memories, which have given us this indispensable road map of our final journey." -- Ann Levin, The Forward

"Gemlike stories from a master of the form." -- Kirkus Reviews, STARRED Review

"Segal brings her rapier wit to this intelligent collection...Segal's unfailing ear and light comedic touch belie the momentous, existential nature of her subject matter. This is funny and moving in equal measure." --Publishers Weekly

"Lore Segal celebrates with humor and grace the friendships that stand the test of time and the particular eccentricities of aging...Ladies' Lunch, is a delightful example of Segal's quick and clever wit."--Shelf Awareness

"These witty, sparky tales of ninetysomething Manhattanite ladies who lunch capture the everyday stuff of ageing." --The Times

"We are lucky to have this piercing collection..."--Times Literary Supplement

Praise for Lore Segal...

"For almost six decades Segal has quietly produced some of the best fiction and essays in American literature..."--The New York Times

"Segal is a monumental writer, one of the finest of her generation..."--Kirkus Reviews

"Lore Segal has the sharp analytic eye of a born writer" -- New York Times Book Review

"A marvellous and singular writer'" --Observer

"Segal has the dazzling ability to merge the mundane details of life with the arc of human emotions." -- Washington Post

"Segal's ironies are serious, subtle, and profound. Her sentences are subversively shattering while seemingly quizzical and detached."--from American Academy of Arts and Letters' induction citation

About the Author