I Can’t Complain

Elinor Lipman has written novels for years, and I Can’t Complain is her first nonfiction collection. The essays cover her writing career, her marriage, the death of her husband, and the many small things she has noticed about being a person who has lived in the same general area of New England for most of her life.

Lipman is funny in a quiet way. The grief sections sit next to the humor without canceling each other out, which is harder to do than it looks.

The writing essays will appeal to anyone curious about how a working novelist actually spends her time. The personal pieces have the warmth her fiction is known for.

Readers who like Anne Lamott or Calvin Trillin’s family essays will find this comfortable. It’s the kind of collection you can read in pieces, one essay at a time, without losing the thread.