Mating Rituals of the North American WASPBy Lauren Lipton
Peggy Adams, advance planner, list maker, and overall good, responsible girl goes to Vegas for a friend’s bachelorette party and wakes up hung over next to a handsome man in a hotel room not her own. The good news is that she’s still fully dressed and even the contents of her handbag are unmolested. The bad news is – she’s married to the handsome stranger, but since she has no memory of the night she spent with him she doesn’t know this until after she has returned to New York City and her boyfriend of seven years. This is a real double edged sword for Peggy, who wants nothing more than to be married, but whose boyfriend Brock has coughed up nothing more than a “promise ring” and promises about setting a wedding date which are at best vague. Peggy’s new husband, Luke Sedgewick of the New Ninevah, Connecticut Sedgewicks, has a few issues of his own to deal with. He is the sole heir to an historically significant, drafty and crumbling house in New Ninevah, and the sole caretaker for his elderly Aunt Abigail. Abigail would like nothing more than to see Luke marry and continue the family name, populating the Silas Sedgewick House with little Sedgewicks in perpetuity. Luke would like nothing more than to sell the Sedgewick house to pay for better care for his aunt and to pursue his love of poetry. When Peggy agrees to meet Luke at his lawyer’s office to start annulment proceedings, Abigail gets wind of the marriage and makes the two an offer they can’t refuse: stay married for a year or until her death, whichever comes first, and they can have the house and do whatever they want with it. Since Peggy’s business is struggling and Luke knows he can’t afford to maintain the house, the two agree to Abigail’s terms, with results that are both funny and touching.
This is a pleasant, entertaining book with a great cast of vividly drawn characters. The spoof of WASP culture (parties with bad hors d’oeuvres amid a sea of gin and tonic, the outfits that consist of layer upon layer upon layer) are on the money and very funny. The scenes in Peggy’s Manhattan shop ring equally true. The twists and turns along the road to true love are well done and not too predictable. Overall, this is a fun book – a well told story with a satisfying ending, and well worth picking up.
