At thir­ty-two, Faith Frankel has returned to her claus­tro-sub­ur­ban home­town, where she writes insti­tu­tion­al thank-you notes for her alma mater. It’s a peace­ful life, real­ly, and sure­ly with her recent pur­chase of a sweet bun­ga­low on Tur­pen­tine Lane her life is final­ly on track. Nev­er mind that her fiancé is off on a crowd­fund­ed cross-coun­try walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post pho­tos of him­self with a dif­fer­ent woman in every state). And nev­er mind her wit­less boss, or a moth­er who lives too close, or a phi­lan­der­ing father who thinks he’s Chagall. 

When she finds some mys­te­ri­ous arti­facts in the attic of her new home, she won­ders whether any­thing in her life is as it seems. What good for­tune, then, that Faith has found a friend in affa­ble, col­le­gial Nick Fran­coni, office­mate par excellence … 

Eli­nor Lip­man may well have invent­ed the screw­ball roman­tic com­e­dy for our era, and here she is at her sharpest and best. On Tur­pen­tine Lane is fun­ny, poignant, and a lit­tle bit outrageous.