Reflections

Movie critic Violet Epps is bold in print, but she has such a hard time speaking up in person that she’s at risk of gaining a roommate she doesn’t want (a boyfriend she’s trying to break up with) and losing the custody battle for her beloved  niece. It seems like a godsend when the free-spirited, tart-tongued ghost  of Dorothy Parker is released from a guestbook at the Algonquin Hotel because she starts giving Violet bold advice on how to manage her life, but things quickly get out of control.

I was completely caught up in the (mis)adventures of Violet, a thoughtful soul who badly wants to do the right thing for her niece, and while the Dorothy Parker in this book may not ring completely true for some readers, the story is so engaging I didn’t care.  Though I knew generally the direction the plot would go in, I did not anticipate its every twist and turn, and the predicaments Violet got in kept me up way later than I should have been, unable to close the book for the night.

Farewell Dorothy Parker reminds me of Elinor Lipman’s novels, so it seemed fitting when I saw that Ms. Lipman had written an enthusiastic blurb for the back cover. According to Ellen Meister in the Author’s Note, she wrote the story she most wanted to read--one with Dorothy Parker as a character--and though full of  witty repartee the book does have the warm quality of something written with love. Even the adversaries in the plot are treated with some sympathy and understanding.