Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

I’ve been a devoted fan of Elinor Lipman since 1988. I had just moved from Louisiana to Maryland for a new job in exciting downtown Bethesda. I lived near the Bethesda Metro and walked to my office building just a block from the Metro’s food court. Between work and home I had to pass a used bookstore that frequently had a table outside with books for sale spread all over it. You know how you shouldn’t take an alcoholic to a bar with you, well, enough said. One day, I picked up a slim paperback titled Into Love and Out Again. I read it while waiting in an interminable line to get my Maryland driver’s license. And so my fandom of Ms. Lipman began.

If you are new to this author, let me give you some background. Lipman has a way with words. She is a great storyteller in a non-traditional sense. She creates quirky one-of-a-kind characters just like someone you might already know. She takes ordinary situations and turns them on their head. You can just tell by her writing that she is clever and sharp as a chef’s knife in a 3-star Michelin restaurant.

To write this review, I did an accounting of my read vs. non-read yet Lipman bibliography:

So, back to Rachel. I found this book to be a bit different from the other Lipman books I’ve read. Because I have been on Twitter (X?) for a very long time, I watched in real time how Lipman completely came undone in a literary sense during the first Trump presidency. She actually got a book deal to publish her tweets, subtitled “Irreverent Rhymes from the Political Circus.” I have not read nor included Tweet Land of Liberty above because, as I said, I read them all in real time. This novel about Rachel, a former federal government employee hired to work in the Correspondence Office of the White House during Trump’s first presidency, seems to me that Lipman had more to say about #45 than what she tweeted.

I’ll be honest. This wasn’t my favorite Lipman novel. My favorite is a toss up between The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (med student), My Latest Grievance (female main character raised in an on-campus university dormitory where her mother is the “Dorm Mother” and her father is a faculty member, and The View from Penthouse B (older, more mature characters, much like me at this point in my life). I recommend these three to all my bookish friends.

Rachel, as the novel begins, hits “reply all” in an email that can only be described as self-destructive and is promptly fired from her White House job. The icing on the cake is that she is run down by a speeding Mercedes as she crosses 17th near the White House. As Rachel is leaving the White House, the Mercedes is on its way to the White House. The plot revolves around Rachel’s willingness/unwillingness to participate in the writing of a tell-all about Trump as she works for a well-known muckraker, and she has been hired precisely because she was fired by the Trump White House. Trump is on every page, and it is not a flattering representation of #45, now known as #47. Whether you are a Trump fan or not, I found this to be a bit much, especially given the current political climate, and because he is so much in the news right now.

What did I love about Rachel to the Rescue? There is much to love. Rachel is complicated. Her parents are absolutely adorable. Her roommates, while completely unconventional in every possible way, are 100% Team Rachel. They are largely responsible for the best part of this book, Rachel’s newest relationship with Alex. I’m not sure how I feel about Kirby, Rachel’s boss. I get why he is there, I’m just not sure if he fits or not.

Thankfully, from what I’ve heard and read online, Lipman’s newest book, Every Tom, Dick & Harry, returns to her tried and true form, and I look forward to reading it soon. I begged for an ARC, but sadly, will have to get in line at the library. Whatever it takes, I am most definitely Team Lipman!