Cleaning House

Since it's almost time to post this year's list of quirky reads, I happily happened upon Cleaning Nabokov's House by Leslie Daniels. It fits the bill rather nicely. Platypus and all.

Tired of eating lettucini cooked on a hot plate in her motel room in Upstate New York, Barb decides she needs to get her children back from her ex. Working through a court-ordered checklist, she sells her car to buy a house. After moving in, she finds out Nabokov once resided there. While sorting out her daughter's extensive purse collection, she opens a stuck drawer to find a pile of note cards. On them are the notes and sketched out plot of a novel about Babe Ruth.

Discovering the unfinished novel allows her to expand her circle of support. The underwear she orders online is certainly not doing the job. She meets an agent (married to her mailman) who convinces her to write the missing scenes. A lawyer in the city helps put her in touch with authenticity experts. While in the city, she comes across an idea for a lucrative business. Since her job writing customer service letters for the Old Daitch Dairy isn't quite enough to put food on the table, she decides to open a "day spa" for the women of the town. 

And yes, it does have a happy ending.