Ladies' Man

by Elinor Lipman

Published 15 June 1999
A straight-talking comic novel with a silver-tongued anti-hero, The Ladies' Man introduces the Dobbin sisters, attractive red-headed spinsters Adele, Lois and Kathleen. Their lives are thrown into disarray by the re-appearance of Nash Harvey, Adele's erstwhile fiance, who deserted her thirty years ago on the evening of their engagement party. The re-appearance of Nash Harvey on the doorstep of the spinster Dobbin sisters, thirty years after he deserted Adele Dobbin on the evening of their engagement party, is the opening of this superb romantic comedy. Debonnaire and pathalogically unreliable, Nash Harvey will soon discover that scorned women do not make gracious hostesess. It's not just Adele who's upset by this incorrigible ladies' man: Lois -- the only sister who ever married, to a man she swiftly divorced after finding out his penchant for women's clothes -- has always had a crush on Nash. And could it be coincidence that Kathleen finds herself propelled, after all these single years, into the arms of Lorenz, the doorman of the building where she runs a lingerie store? Full of wit, mischief and elegance, The Ladies' Man is the work of a brilliant comic novelist.