I have never been to Baltimore, but I seem to cross paths with it a lot. I have read many whimsical Anne Tyler novels set there, where the worst that can happen is a divorce. On the other end of the spectrum, I have heard plenty about Woodland High and Leakin Park on Serial. This is the dark side of Baltimore, where high school seniors rush out of school one afternoon and are never seen alive again.
Somewhere between the two is Laura Lipman’s Lady in the Lake. The title is well selected, as it is set in the mid 1960s, a time when women had few paths to upward mobility that did not hinge on their ability to attract eligible men. One narrator, Cleo, lays this plain when she states that she must leave her two boys with her parents so she can strike out on her own to find a father figure for them. It will simply be easier to get married if her suitors don’t yet know about her children. Her matter-of-fact desperation is one of the things that easily hooked me into the story.
Cleo ends up as the titular lady in the lake. That her death goes initially unnoticed speaks to another of the book’s themes: racism in the civil rights era. It falls to Maddie, a recent divorcee trying her hand as a cub reporter, to uncover the truth.
The whole mileau of Baltimore at this time is one of tribal divisions along racial, ethnic, and gender lines. There is a nice sequence where a dinner party breaks down into private judgments about Jewish dietary customs. In another good scene, a single woman, desperate to move out of her parents’ house, strikes up an entirely convenient friendship with someone who could be a potential roommate. The mood of distrust nicely underscores the main murder plot.
For some reason this book didn’t grab me quite as tightly as the similar Long Bright River by Liz Moore. If you have time for only one, I would go for that. I did enjoy it, though, and it has made me ever more curious about Baltimore.
Books Smitten 