Trading Manhattan’s Gramercy Park for a mind-numbing retirement community, Pippa Lee’s aging husband sends his youngish wife into the doldrums. At fifty, Pippa is not yet ready to relinquish her stimulating life in the city. And what a life it’s been. Running away from her Dexedrine-addicted mother in high school after a passionate affair with a teacher, Pippa pushed every boundary of her new identity as a New Yorker. Situating herself in an avant-garde circle of friends, she relished the club scene, leaving broken hearts in her wake. Then she met Herb, a brilliant publisher thirty years her senior who swept her off her feet and introduced her to the world of motherhood and monogamy. Examining Pippa’s colorful relationships --- with the lovers of her youth, with her husband, with her children --- The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is an exuberant novel about the surprising, sometimes tragicomic forces that shape our destinies.