Way Men ACT (Original) - by Elinor Lipman (Paperback)

About the Book

The author who has singlehandedly revived the art of screwball comedy is back with a delightful novel about living in the '90s. Set in Harrow, Massachussetts, where "quality of life" is measured in cappucino machines, poetry readings and bike paths, The Way Men Act is about friendship, snobbery, and getting lucky in love after giving up hope.

Book Synopsis

Melinda LeBlanc, at 30, makes an untriumphant return to Harrow, Massachusetts, her recently gentrified hometown. She's unmarried, romanced out, designing wedding bouquets for old classmates who hadn't known a fraction of her early popularity. So why is she alone--not counting the occasional horizontal encounter--while these dull brides have found men and happiness? Libby Getchel, who designs strange dresses in the shop next door, and Dennis Vaughan, a native son who owns the hip Brookhoppers, a fly fisherman's paradise, provide friendship in mutating forms. The Way Men Act explores age-old quandary: Can you every truly go home again? Find out in this "wise and charming novel" (Cosmopolitan).

Review Quotes

"Elinor Lipman's language is so superb that to paraphrase would be murder. Part of the joy of this wise and charming novel is in the writing. The rest is in the thinking--smart, offbeat, funny. What a pleasure." -- Cosmopolitan

"In a league with Jane Austen... Elinor Lipman's eye for social geography instantly infatuates, just as the screwball plot charms with its basic tenet of successful courtship: location, location, location." --Glamour

"With The Way Men Act, Elinor Lipman emerges as a full-fledge talent, a witty, compassionate chronicler of modern sensibility, wise without beating the reader over the head with her insights....Written in spare, sparkling prose, with not a flat or dragging millisecond." -- Michael Dorris in the Boston Globe

About the Author

Elinor Lipman is the award-winning author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Inn at Lake Devine, Isabel's Bed, and more. Her first novel, Then She Found Me, was adapted into a film directed by and starring Helen Hunt, with Bette Midler, Colin Firth, and Matthew Broderick. She divides her time between Manhattan and the Hudson Valley.