The dearly departed : a novel
(Book)

When amateur actress Margaret Batten and her lover Miles Finn are found dead in Margaret's ramshackle gray bungalow, all of King George, New Hampshire, is abuzz. Is it foul play? (No, carbon monoxide poisoning.) Were they engaged? (Yes, if you believe the cleaning lady.) And why do Margaret's daughter Sunny and Miles's son Fletcher have the same kind of wispy, shiny, prematurely gray hair? (They're brother and sister, or so suggests Fletcher, annoyingly and at length.) Meeting one's possible half brother for the first time is jolting enough. But for Sunny Batten, the shock is compounded by finding out that her shy, sweet-faced mother was evidently not the "little mouse"--or even the "late bloomer"--Sunny had always assumed her to be. In other words, when the eulogists praise Margaret's vaunted generosity and her "open door," they aren't necessarily talking about the time she asked the Girl Scouts in for lemonade. But then King George is full of surprises. Home for the first time since high school, Sunny finds herself reassessing the place. She has ample reason to regret her teenage years--she was poor, had no father, was the only girl on the golf team, found a dead carp in her golf bag one time. But how far can a grudge take you in life? Can we ever really know the truth about our parents? What state of mind does it take to shoot par? Lipman addresses such questions with her customary lighthearted touch, sketching out her ensemble cast with rapid and comical strokes.