Elinor Lipman, Every Tom, Dick & Harry, with Stacy Schiff

Event Category
Lecture/Panel
Event Type
Open to the Public
Event Location
Members' Room and Online
Event Price
$15/$10

From the author of Ms. Demeanor—one of the most beloved comedic writers of our time—comes a charming, laugh-out-loud tale of love and criminality, a pitch-perfect romantic comedy.

Taking over her parents’ estate-sale business is not the life’s work that Emma Lewis bargained for. Yes, she grew up helping them empty people’s nests, but nothing prepared her for her biggest and stickiest “get” - the grand, beautiful house of ill repute masquerading as a decidedly beddable B and B. Should Emma turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because they are shady, escort-y, and proud of it? No. A girl must make a living. Around some hairpin turns Lipman ingeniously reveals a straight shot to happiness.

“Over the course of more than thirty years and at least fifteen books, Elinor Lipman has been creating a singularly delightful and instantly recognizable literary universe. Lipmanland is a world adjacent to our own, except the people there are more charming, the conversations are wittier, and love always prevails. Every Tom, Dick & Harry weaves together estate sales, good and bad cops, and—get this—small-town houses of ill repute with effortless glee. Add sparkling dialogue, an improbably hilarious funeral, and one of the author’s most endearing love stories, and you have the Lipman Literary Landscape at its irresistible best. When events are too much to handle in the real world, there are few better breaks than entering this one. Passport optional.” - Stephen McCauley

Elinor Lipman headshot

Author photo by Michael Benabib

Elinor Lipman is the award-winning author of 16 books of fiction and nonfiction including The Inn at Lake Devine, Isabel's Bed, On Turpentine Lane, Good Riddance, I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays, Rachel to the Rescue, and most recently, Ms. Demeanor. Her first novel, Then She Found Me, became a 2008 feature film, directed by and starring Helen Hunt, with Bette Midler, Colin Firth, and Matthew Broderick. She was the 2011-12 Elizabeth Drew professor of creative writing at Smith College, and winner of the New England Bookseller Award and the Paterson Fiction Prize. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe and New York Times, including two "Modern Love" essays. elinorlipman.com
Headshot of Stacy Schiff
Stacy Schiff is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize and the Ambassador Book Award; Cleopatra: A Life, winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for biography; The Witches: Salem, 1692, and most recently The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, one of President Obama's favorite books of 2022. Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Thirty-five years before she became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she was Elinor Lipman’s first editor.

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