Rating: 
Summary: Every friend you give it to will bless you.
Review: A perfect comic romp. I couldn't bear to let these characters go -- or remember the last time I read anything this side-splittingly funny. Lipman has the golden touch.
Rating: 
Summary: A Let-Down From the Elinor Lipman High
Review: After reading "The Way Men Act," "Isabel's Bed," and "The Inn at Lake Devine," "The Ladies' Man" was a HUGE let-down. Elinor Lipman is funny, creative, and interesting, but i found this book to be of a lower caliber than her previous work. I became addicted to her books through her vivid characters, and though the characterizations remain vivid, I never became attached to the players in this book. Maybe there were too many of them, maybe they all did too many despicable things. The three sisters are indeed interesting, but I did not feel that I got to know any of them very well. However, the trip into Harvey's brain was something else.
Rating:
Summary: Includes the most delicious sex scene you will ever read
Review: Among other delights. You will find yourself quoting this one over and over -- when you've picked yourself up from the floor. Nash is the perfect ladies' man but all of Lipman's men are charmers; Richard, and Lorenz's father, are alone worth the price of admission. This is witty Lipman at her wittiest. You'll pray for a sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU ELINOR LIPMAN?!
Review: As an avid fan of Ms. Lipman's "The Inn at Lake Devine," and "The Way Men Act," I was excited to read "The Ladies' Man," and the first few chapters did not disappoint, but then it went flat, and I found my mind wandering and then I thought the thing you hope never to think while reading- "I don't care about these people." Let's hope this is a minor setback for Ms. Lipman- her true fans deserve better!
Rating: 
Summary: Light romantic farce
Review: Cheerful romantic farce about middle-aged singles in New England, centering on the return of a philandering jingle-writer who returns from California ostensibly to make amends to the stuffy spinster he jilted thirty years before.The book would be boring if it only offered a bitter female perspective on "how come guys never call", but it goes beyond the anger and finds some sympathy, compassion, and even a little admiration. The titled character is sympathetic, despite the fact 'he lies as easily as you or I would say our prayers.' The other characters are lovingly rendered as well, offering nine further examples of how to avoid intimacy and fall into your fifties in an unmarried state. Lipman's dry humor, and her crisp, easy style, make this a quick and enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Ladies Man At Bay
Review: Elinor Lipman is concerned with second chances. In her previous romance, The Way Men Act, she described the slow and accidental re-union of a divorcee with the high school flame she never wed. In The Ladies' Man she puts this basic question of whether it's possible to go back in a more complicated frame. Harvey Nash, the professional romancer of the title, follows the trade of commercial jingles composer and returns to Boston fleeing his West coast live-in lover, Dina, whose modeling career has given way to a commercial practice massaging feet. The woman he abandoned, failing to turn up to their engagement party thirty years earlier, is Adelle Dobbin, also encumbered - by two sisters, Lois and Kathleen, both also single. It is Lipman's endeavour to explore not only the damage which Harvey's breach of faith did to the marriageability of all three, but also how his re-appearance in their lives unexpectedly jarrs them back into motion, a bowling ball among the cob-webbed skittles. Adelle fundraises for non commercial TV, Lois (the middle one) works for the Employment Office and Kathleen owns a lingerie boutique whose doorman, Lorenz, she flirts with and finally dates in the flurry of Harvey's return. (He arrives at midnight, flirts with all three in turn, and moves Kathleen to break a casserole over his head.) The doorman's building also contains Cynthia John, a financial consultant Harvey seduces on the plane East, who throws a music recital to show him off (a masterful scene of music snobs volte facing into success worshipping applause at Harvey's one ubiquitous coffee ad refrain). The initial charm and inexplicability of Harvey's relentless boyish seduction is gradually stripped away by Lipman's gaze - he emptied Dina's bank account on the way from LA but calls her to forward the residual payment cheques which are his only income. The scene of Nash Harvey (his professionally reversed name) inspecting the dilapidated parental home he first left Boston to flee, reduced to staying there rent free if he is to stay at all, is quietly fierce, as is the scene of Adelle breaking down in the changing room of her sister's shop: "Dell, are you alright?" "No," she says softly. But these scenes are always harnessed to comedy, as Harvey's vengeful ex Cynthia walks into the store, as Adelle's remembered one sexual encounter was with a randy academic whose pedagogic urge leads him to view his member as a teaching aide. These scenes are ruefully funny, a bitter undercurrent to the frothy shake of Lipman's style, making her books a smooth but satisfying brew.
Lipman's gems in this book are the minor characters: Lorenz the doorman's traditional father who thinks Kathleen is too good to sleep around with and won't vacate the apartment, Adelle's shy station boss admirer Marty whose sexual harassment paranoia and self-doubts she deftly hits, the boyish deputy Sherrif brother Richard Dobbin, whose reflexive picking up on waitresses is a less exploitative counterpart to Harvey, part of Lipman's ongoing project shaking her head at men's odd ways. Her one failure is Byron Sprock, the passing playwright Dina conjugates with, whose glibness is too close to Harvey's with no grain of depth, perhaps why Dina wants to get her ladies' man returned. The exquisite handling of the plot's spinning plates never let you feel much will ever fall out of hand, but Lipman's acid eye won't let you think she's been too kind or glib while sending Harvey on his way. Stern in its judgements but kind to its readers and characters, it is a wise and easy book to read.
Rating:
Summary: Ladies Man At Bay
Review: Elinor Lipman is concerned with second chances. In her previous romance, The Way Men Act, she described the slow and accidental re-union of a divorcee with the high school flame she never wed. In The Ladies' Man she puts this basic question of whether it's possible to go back in a more complicated frame. Harvey Nash, the professional romancer of the title, follows the trade of commercial jingles composer and returns to Boston fleeing his West coast live-in lover, Dina, whose modeling career has given way to a commercial practice massaging feet. The woman he abandoned, failing to turn up to their engagement party thirty years earlier, is Adelle Dobbin, also encumbered - by two sisters, Lois and Kathleen, both also single. It is Lipman's endeavour to explore not only the damage which Harvey's breach of faith did to the marriageability of all three, but also how his re-appearance in their lives unexpectedly jarrs them back into motion, a bowling ball among the cob-webbed skittles. Adelle fundraises for non commercial TV, Lois (the middle one) works for the Employment Office and Kathleen owns a lingerie boutique whose doorman, Lorenz, she flirts with and finally dates in the flurry of Harvey's return. (He arrives at midnight, flirts with all three in turn, and moves Kathleen to break a casserole over his head.) The doorman's building also contains Cynthia John, a financial consultant Harvey seduces on the plane East, who throws a music recital to show him off (a masterful scene of music snobs volte facing into success worshipping applause at Harvey's one ubiquitous coffee ad refrain). The initial charm and inexplicability of Harvey's relentless boyish seduction is gradually stripped away by Lipman's gaze - he emptied Dina's bank account on the way from LA but calls her to forward the residual payment cheques which are his only income. The scene of Nash Harvey (his professionally reversed name) inspecting the dilapidated parental home he first left Boston to flee, reduced to staying there rent free if he is to stay at all, is quietly fierce, as is the scene of Adelle breaking down in the changing room of her sister's shop: "Dell, are you alright?" "No," she says softly. But these scenes are always harnessed to comedy, as Harvey's vengeful ex Cynthia walks into the store, as Adelle's remembered one sexual encounter was with a randy academic whose pedagogic urge leads him to view his member as a teaching aide. These scenes are ruefully funny, a bitter undercurrent to the frothy shake of Lipman's style, making her books a smooth but satisfying brew.
Lipman's gems in this book are the minor characters: Lorenz the doorman's traditional father who thinks Kathleen is too good to sleep around with and won't vacate the apartment, Adelle's shy station boss admirer Marty whose sexual harassment paranoia and self-doubts she deftly hits, the boyish deputy Sherrif brother Richard Dobbin, whose reflexive picking up on waitresses is a less exploitative counterpart to Harvey, part of Lipman's ongoing project shaking her head at men's odd ways. Her one failure is Byron Sprock, the passing playwright Dina conjugates with, whose glibness is too close to Harvey's with no grain of depth, perhaps why Dina wants to get her ladies' man returned. The exquisite handling of the plot's spinning plates never let you feel much will ever fall out of hand, but Lipman's acid eye won't let you think she's been too kind or glib while sending Harvey on his way. Stern in its judgements but kind to its readers and characters, it is a wise and easy book to read.
Rating:
Summary: Elinor Lipman Rules! Give her 10 Satrs!
Review: Elinor Lipman needs an endorsement like a hole in the head. If you don't own this book, buy it now. Ms. Lipman is one of the most arresting and delightful writers today. She dances with words and characters as though they were precious gems, some glisten with their polished portrayal and others exist to demonstrate our human imperfections. Harvey Dash sounds like someone I used to date - the classic bottom of the pile guy with a geiger counter for a libido, clicking like mad when within proximity of a possible encounter with any opportunity, and I mean - any. Men like him are a waste of food - but you won't regret one moment you give to Ms. Lipman's work. Better yet, buy them all! I recommend her work every chance I get!
Rating:
Summary: "The Ladies' Man" is a hilarious romp.
Review: Elinor Lipman's "The Ladies' Man" is so funny and yet so true to human nature that it is doubly pleasurable. It is the story of Harvey Nash or Nash Harvey (he likes to change the order of his name), a man so addicted to flirting that it is almost a reflex action. He leaves a trail of broken hearts wherever he goes. Nash has a romantic history with Adele Dobbin, who now works as an on-air fundraiser for a public television station in Boston. Adele has a bunch of hilarious siblings who have an unbreakable habit of interfering with one another's lives. Throughout most of the book, Lipman shows Nash and the Dobbin siblings stumbling through different entanglements, romantic and otherwise, as they try to make some sense out of their lives. At times poignant, at other times sardonic and satirical, "The Ladies' Man" is a delicious comedy of manners for the modern reader.
Rating:
Summary: She scores again!
Review: I am a great fan of Elinor Lipman's novels, and in The Ladies'Man she scores again. She makes three redheaded, middle-aged sisters utterly unique from one another, each a different kind of treasure. What a delight. Her prose is pure magic.
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