Preview of Lily White Summary:

The basic theme of this big novel is surprisingly simple, but forceful nonetheless: Even smart, tough women can be fooled; some of them survive; some do not.

Exhibit A of the women who do not is Bobette Frisch, a fifty-something businesswoman who had built up a small empire of three bars and two apartment buildings. She collected their receipts daily, in person, and was known as a no-nonsense, unimaginative solid citizen.

Bobette did have an imaginative side, however, that she hid in the fussily feminine decor of her home and the all-purple tones of her bedroom. It was as if all her life Bobette had been waiting for the right man to find her inner sanctum and sweep her away. When she meets Norman Torkelson via a personals ad, she apparently decides he is the one. But Norman is a con man who romances lonely middle-aged women, then...