My Latest Grievance (Lipman)

My Latest Grievance
Elinor Lipman, 2006
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780618872350

Summary
My Latest Grievance introduces us to Frederica Hatch. Sixteen years old and accustomed to being the center of attention, Frederica has been raised in a dorm on the campus of Dewing, a women's college just outside Boston. It's 1978, and her parents are intensely PC (before the term was coined)—two bleeding hearts that beat as one. Aviva Ginsburg Hatch is a union grievance commitee chairperson and perennial professor of the year, and, to Frederica's frustration, she's the only mother around who doesn't own a jewelry box and makeup. Frederica's father, David Hatch, shares his wife's political passions and agrees with her about almost everything. Chafing under the care of the "most annoyingly evenhanded parental team in the history of civilization," Frederica is starting to feel that her life is stiflingly snug.

But then Frederica's path crosses that of the glamorous new dorm mother at Dewing, Laura Lee French, the antithesis of the Hatches. And with Laura Lee comes the best gossip in the history of the college—she is David Hatch's ex-wife. When Frederica learns the surprising news, she can't stop imagining the maternal road not taken, wondering if she was born into the wrong side of the divorce. Fearing scandal, the three Hatches and Laura Lee are forced to keep their history a secret, and havoc and hilarity ensue. The New York Times Book Review compared Lipman to "an inspired alchemist," and the magic continues with My Latest Grievance. (From the publisher.)