The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
by Rebecca Miller
Pub. Date: August 2009
Genre: Fiction
256pp

Synopsis from BN.com:
Trading Manhattan's Gramercy Park for a mind-numbing retirement community, Pippa Lee's aging husband sends his youngish wife into the doldrums. At fifty, Pippa is not yet ready to relinquish her stimulating life in the city. And what a life it's been. Running away from her Dexedrine-addicted mother in high school after a passionate affair with a teacher, Pippa pushed every boundary of her new identity as a New Yorker. Situating herself in an avant-garde circle of friends, she relished the club scene, leaving broken hearts in her wake. Then she met Herb, a brilliant publisher thirty years her senior who swept her off her feet and introduced her to the world of motherhood and monogamy. Examining Pippa's colorful relationships -- with the lovers of her youth, with her husband, with her children -- The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is an exuberant novel about the surprising, sometimes tragicomic forces that shape our destinies.

Why I Picked It:
I think I saw a preview for the movie for this one, and it got me interested. Like most books, it's spent quite some time in my TBR pile, but I pulled it out a couple weeks ago, and with a few starts and stops....

My Review:
What we let people see and what we hide can make a huge difference in how we are accepted into and survive this world. Pippa learned from a very early age about the need to conform to a situation while watching her crazed dexadrine addicted mother. At first, I found Pippa to be very Martha Stewart and bland, but as the tone of the novel switched to first person, and introduced how she got to became Pippa Lee, married to a man 30 years older with a compliant son, and an angry daughter of her own who hated her. Of course, the stories she chose to hide were much more interesting than the performance of perfection and calm.

But is anyone truly what we see on the surface? Of course not. That's why I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the peeling of the layers, the examination of the characters, and the evolution of the truth. After her children are raised, and she finds herself in a retirement community, she becomes restless. Pippa's sudden sleepwalking/sleepdriving adventures allowing her inner truth come out - eating, smoking, and leaving behind a mess.

What compelled me to finish this book (it had been one of those that I started but left half-finished), was seeing that the movie was out on dvd. The screenplay was written and directed by Rebecca Miller, the author of this book. I have to say that I actually enjoyed the movie even more. I found the casting to be almost perfect, and I was only a little annoyed when they attempted to make Alan Arkin look 30 years younger. Um, he didn't, he just looked like he had a wig on. But aside from that, I enjoyed it as a follow up to the book, one that actually held true to the book.

This book could present a lot of opportunities for conversation. What truth about ourselves have we been hiding? How much would we be willing to sacrifice for stability and love? How did our mother shape our own relationship with our daughters, sons, etc.?