Lippincott's touching, delicately constructed second novel (after Mr. Dalloway) poses two questions, one stated—how to live?—and one implied—what is the role of art? In 1928, Lark Marin and Nora Hartley set out together to find a better life. Freshly divorced, Nora means to escape Boston and raise her two children in a more natural setting, while Lark, who is gay, is fleeing three years in Manhattan and a series of bad relationships. With her divorce settlement and his inheritance from an uncle, Nora and Lark purchase "a fine Victorian more or less in good shape" in Truro, a rural town at the end of Cape Cod, and call it True House. They fill its rooms with like-minded friends, both gay and straight—among them two painters, a gardener and a man simply seeking his art form. During the 15 years the novel spans, these friends grow close, pine for each other, fall in and out of love while raising children, losing parents and even losing some of their own members. But what's important about life at True House is not necessarily birth and death, but art: painting, gardening and finding the Muse in between. Indeed, Lippincott seems most interested in depicting a bohemian community that reveres, and is united by, art. Appropriately for an author influenced by Virginia Woolf, he has written less a straightforward narrative than a montage of short scenes, journal entries, postcards, letters, excerpts from travel guides and poems. Some unsentimental readers may find such a meditation on art and the good but rustic life too precious. But those interested in a utopian perspective and a celebration of the consolations of friendship should find this supple, graceful novel deeply satisfying. Author tour. (June)
