{"product_id":"the-dearly-departed-isbn-9780375724589","title":"The Dearly Departed","description":"\u003cb\u003eWith her trademark humor and warmth, the beloved author of \u003ci\u003eMs. Demeanor\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEvery Tom, Dick \u0026amp; Harry \u003c\/i\u003eexplores what it means to return home and find light in the dark corners of one's inhospitable past in a dazzling novel about golf, love, and DNA. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEveryone in King George, New Hampshire, loved Margaret Batten, part-time amateur actress, full-time wallflower, and single mother to a now-distant daughter, Sunny. But accidents happen. The death of Margaret, side by side with her putative fiancé, brings Sunny back to the scene of the unhappy adolescence she thought she’d left behind. Reentry is to be dreaded; there’s no hiding in a town with one diner, one doctor, one stop sign, one motel. Yet allies surface; even high school tormentors have grown up in unforeseen and gratifying ways. Just possibly, Sunny begins to think, she wasn’t as beleaguered as she felt she was. And maybe her mother’s life was richer than anyone suspected. Add to the mix a chief of police whose interest in Sunny exceeds his civic duty, and you have the makings of an irresistibly beguiling tale from an author who writes with all the wit and wry authority of a latter-day Jane Austen.\"Almost nobody writes serious entertainment with more panache.\"–\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Witty and wry...this is summer reading at its best.\"–\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Dearly Departed\u003c\/i\u003e contains a core of dark and mordant wit that distinguishes it, in delightful ways, from the norm\u003ci\u003e.”–Washington Post Book World\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nothing short of brilliant.... A story so funny and so pleasurable that the reader can only wish it did not have to end.\"–\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003eELINOR LIPMAN is the author of many books, including the novels \u003ci\u003eThe Pursuit of Alice Thrift, The Dearly Departed, The Ladies' Man, The Inn at Lake Devine, Isabel's Bed, The Way Men Act, Then She Found Me, Ms. Demeanor, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eEvery Tom, Dick \u0026amp; Harry\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as a collection of stories, \u003ci\u003eInto Love and Out Again.\u003c\/i\u003e She has been called \"the diva of dialogue\" (\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e) and \"the last urbane romantic\" (\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e). \u003ci\u003eBook Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e said of \u003ci\u003eThe Pursuit of Alice Thrift, \u003c\/i\u003e\"Like Jane Austen, the past master of the genre, Lipman isn't only out for laughs. She serves up social satire, too, that's all the more trenchant for being deftly drawn.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer essays have appeared in the \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGourmet\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e’ Writers on Writing series. She received the New England Booksellers' 2001 fiction award for a body of work.CHAPTER 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCome Back to King George\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunny met Fletcher for the first time at their parents’ funeral, a huge graveside affair where bagpipes wailed and strangers wept. It was a humid, mosquito-plagued June day, and the grass was spongy from a midnight thunderstorm. They had stayed on the fringes of the crowd until both were rounded up and bossed into the prime mourners’ seats by the funeral director. Sunny wore white—picture hat, dress, wet shoes—and an expression that layered anger over grief: Who is he? How dare he? Are any of these gawkers friends?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnspoken but universally noticed was the physical attribute she and Fletcher shared—a halo of prematurely gray hair of a beautiful shade and an identical satiny, flyaway texture. No DNA test result, no hints in wills, could be more eloquent than this: the silver corona of signature hair above their thirty-one-year-old, identically furrowed brows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe King George Bulletin had reported every possible angle, almost gleefully. Margaret Batten, local actress, and friend found unconscious, said the first banner headline. Bulletin paper carrier calls 911, boasted the kicker. An arty photo—sunrise in King George—of scrawny, helmeted Tyler Lopez on his bike, a folded newspaper frozen in flight, appeared on page 1. “I knew something was wrong when I saw them laying on the floor—the woman and a man,” he told the reporter. “The door was open. I thought they might still be alive, so I used the phone.” Inescapable in the coverage was the suggestion of a double suicide or foul play. Yellow police tape surrounded the small house. Even after tests revealed carbon monoxide in their blood and a crack in the furnace’s heat exchanger, Bulletin reporters carried on, invigorated by a double, coed death on their beat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA reader named Vickileigh Vaughn wrote a letter to the editor. She wanted to clarify something on the record so all of King George would know: Friend in the headline was inaccurate and possibly libelous. Miles Finn and Margaret Batten were engaged to be married. Friends, yes, but so much more than that. An outdoor wedding had been discussed. If the odorless and invisible killer hadn’t overcome them, Miles would have left, as was his custom, before midnight, after the Channel 9 news.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunny was notified by a message on her answering machine. “Sunny? It’s Fletcher Finn, Miles’s son. Could you pick up if you’re there?” Labored breathing filled the pause. “I guess not. Okay. Listen, I don’t know when I can get to a phone again, so I’ll have to give you the news, which is somewhat disturbing.” Another pause, too long for the machine, which clicked off. He called back. “Hi, it’s Fletcher Finn again. Here’s what I was going to say. I’ll make it quick: I got a call from the police in Saint George, New Hampshire—no, sorry, King George. They found our parents unconscious. Nobody knows anything. I’ve got the name of the hospital and the other stuff the cop said. What’s your fax number? Call me. I’ll be up late.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunny phoned the King George police. The crime scene, she was told by a solicitous male voice, was roped off until the lab work came back. Sunny pictured the peeling gray bungalow secured with yellow tape, its sagging porch and overgrown lilacs cinched in the package.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Are they going to die?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sunny?” said the officer. “It’s Joe Loach. From Mattatuck Avenue? We were in study hall together junior and senior—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I got a message from a Fletcher Finn, who said his father and my mother were found unconscious, but that’s all I know. He didn’t even say what hospital.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLoach coughed. “Sunny? They weren’t taken to a hospital. It was too late for that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No,” Sunny moaned. “No. Please.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It was the damn carbon monoxide. It builds up over time, and then it’s too late. I’m so sorry. I hate to do this over the phone . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she couldn’t answer, he said, “I saw your mother in Driving Miss Daisy at the VFW, and she was really something.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunny pictured her mother’s grande-dame bow and the magisterial sweep of the arm that invited her leading man to join her in the spotlight. It had taken practice, with Sunny coaching, because Margaret’s inclination was to blush and look amazed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’re where now? Connecticut?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said she was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Okay. One step at a time. Nothing says you can’t make arrangements by telephone. Maybe your mother put her preferences in writing—people do that, something like, ‘Instructions. To be opened in the event of my death.’ I could walk anything over to the funeral parlor for you. In fact, remember Dickie Saint-Onge from our class? He took over the business. He’s used to handling things long-distance.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m coming up,” said Sunny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“She and her fiancé didn’t suffer,” said Joey Loach. “That much I can promise you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fiancé?” she repeated. “How do you know that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That seems to be everyone’s understanding. Her cleaning lady wrote a letter to the editor to set the record straight. Plus, there was a ring on the appropriate finger.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunny cried softly, her hand over the receiver.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Can I do anything?” he asked. “Can I call anyone?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’d better get off,” she said. “There must be some phone calls I should make. I’m sure that’s what I’m supposed to do next.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Just so you know, the house is okay now. They found the leak and fixed it, the town did, first thing. You don’t have to be afraid of sleeping there. I’ll make sure that everything is shipshape.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I think my friend Regina used to baby-sit for your sister,” she said. “Marilyn?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Marilee,” said Joey. “She’s still here. We’re all still here. So’s Regina. You okay?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I meant to say thank you,” said Sunny, “but that’s what came out instead.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’re welcome,” said Joey Loach.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFletcher sounded more annoyed than mournful when he reached Sunny the next morning. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “I would have thought you’d have returned my call.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You didn’t leave your number,” said Sunny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m sure you can appreciate that I wasn’t thinking about secretarial niceties last night,” he snapped.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Such as ‘I’m so sorry about your mother’?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I didn’t know her,” he said. “And at the time of my call I believed she was still alive.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunny quietly slipped the receiver into its cradle. 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