Elinor Lipman

Rachel Klein is sacked from her job at the White House after she sends an email criticizing Donald Trump.

As she is escorted off the premises she is hit by a speeding car, driven by what the press will discreetly call 'a personal friend of the President.'

Does that explain the flowers, the get-well wishes at a press briefing, the hush money offered by a lawyer at her hospital bedside?

Rachel’s recovery is soothed by comically doting parents, matchmaking roommates, a new job as aide to a journalist whose books aim to defame the President, and unexpected love at the local wine store.

But secrets leak, and Rachel's new-found happiness has to make room for more than a little chaos. Will she bring down the President? Or will he manage to do that all by himself?

Rachel to the Rescue is a mischievous political satire, with a delightful cast of characters, from one of America's funniest novelists.

Reviews and Praise

"Lipman's great skill is to secure her narrative in the social fabric of the immediate present: couching the story of her leading protagonist, Rachel Klein, in the first person acts to authenticate both the dialogue—of which there is much—and to render a world of which most of us, on this side of the pond, have little knowledge, through the unique experience of one observer. A political hot potato only by inference and association, Lipman’s book is a masterwork of wit, comic timing and plot convolution." Steve Whitaker, Yorkshire Times (UK)

"Rachel to the Rescue revolves around one young woman navigating her way through a parade of spurned adults behaving badly. It's the universal story of growing up and learning what matters and who deserves our attention. I have no doubt that readers who are hungry for heartwarming comedy and spicy D.C. gossip will find Lipman's new novel absolutely delicious." The New York Times

"This is a great novel for a long and lazy summer afternoon. It feels so good to laugh." Minneapolis Star Tribune

"If laughter is the best medicine, Elinor Lipman's 13th novel, Rachel to the Rescue, is a healing prescription following four years of the Trump presidency.

"With her typical rapier wit and affection for her characters, Lipman's romantic comedy starts by noting the Trump White House did have staffers to reconstruct documents—legally required to be preserved—that the president regularly tore up. A member of "Team Scotch Tape," Rachel Klein inadvertently ended her White House Office of Records Management (WHORM) career with a late-night "reply-all drunken email." Her tie to the administration is extended, however, when after being dismissed from her office she's hit by a car driven by "what the newspapers would one day diplomatically refer to as 'a personal friend of the president's.' " Rachel's first-person narration ratchets up the humor of the suspected hanky-panky, the not-so-subtle attempts to silence her about the accident and her stereotypically over-attentive Jewish parents.

"Lipman (Good Riddance; On Turpentine Lane) is a master of madcap twists and quirky characters, and she balances this political satire of a still-raw chapter in history with hilarious sub-plots. The supporting cast includes Rachel's likable new employer, the book-a-year muckraking author Kirby Champion; roommates committed to nurturing her romance with a dashing wine store clerk ("How did I end up living in Yentaville?" Rachel asks); and Alex, of Varsity Wine. A fast-paced, dialogue-rich denouement resolves the White House shenanigans storyline, leading to an ending that Lipman characters reach so adeptly: happiness ever after." Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y. (for Shelf Awareness)