Lippman’s latest builds suspense
And no matter what genre it is, it’s a page-turner to read
There was a moment when I turned the page on Laura Lippman’s new novel, “Dream Girl,” and I thought to myself, Hold on, what genre is this book?
And then I immediately stopped worrying about it because the label we put on a book isn’t important if the book makes you want to keep reading. “Dream Girl” passes that test easily.
Laura Lippman is one of the best novelists working today, period. Seeing her name on the cover of a book is a guarantee of a highly satisfying reading experience. I confess, I have not read all 25 of her published books, but I’ve gotten to 18 or so, and every time I’ve walked away a happy human.
This is just a theory, but that Lippman is not slotted with writers like Jonathan Franzen and Donna Tartt and other widely regarded literary fiction luminaries is that she has origins as a genre writer, with her (truly delightful) Tess Monaghan series, which follows a former journalist turned private investigator working Monaghan (and Lippman’s) home town of Baltimore. I’ve recommended the Monaghan novels to dozens of people and I’ve been thanked every time.
Lippman has written an almost equal number of stand-alone novels, and it is the last three, “Sunburn,” “Lady in the Lake,” and now “Dream Girl,” that I believe are one of the best three book runs this side of Colson Whitehead.
Building suspense is Lippman’s stockin-trade that travels book-to-book, but rather than relying on surface-level twists, the suspense comes from a deeper and deeper burrowing into her characters and the difficult situations she’s placed them in.
“Sunburn” is a kind of quasi-domesticized version of the dynamic between the Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw characters in “The Getaway.” As Adam and Polly grow closer, the secrets they’re withholding from each other grow more fraught. There is no good guy/girl, bad guy/girl dynamic, only complicated people with difficult pasts.
“Lady in the Lake” has all the surface features of a classic noir novel, but it also contains a sharp analysis and rendering of 1960s race and gender dynamics, a little like “Mad Men” told from Peggy’s point of view, though at a newspaper instead of an advertising agency, and with a dead body turning up in a fountain.
“Dream Girl” has been getting a lot of comparisons to Stephen
King’s “Misery” — as like “Misery” it involves a famous writer confined to a bed, but the scenario is a wink, a misdirection that allows Lippman to write a sharp satire of publishing itself, a commentary on how and why we slot writers into genres, and what this does to our perceptions of their work.
Also, it’s a page-turning thriller.
The writer character is Gerry Andersen, who wrote a prize-winning first novel, and a bestselling fourth book titled “Dream Girl,” which has left him in the enviable position of living off of his royalties. He has moved back to Baltimore to take care of his dying mother who passed away sooner than expected. Following a freak accident, Anderson is left helpless in his penthouse as he heals from an injured leg. There is an assistant and a night nurse and lots of time for Andersen to consider his past.
I marked a good dozen or so passages taking on the publishing industry to go back to and savor. Some final twists in the story made those passages even more delicious. It’s a book I could read again tomorrow and take away a whole list of different pleasures than the first time. Laura Lippman is a major writer. If you don’t know her, there’s 25 books waiting for you.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”