The best book I’ve read this year begins like this: “Whenever I wake up next to a man, before I’m fully awake, I think it’s Ted. Of course it never is.”

Lillian, the narrator of LILLIAN ON LIFE, goes on to identify some of the major elements of her romantic life: a man, red wine, K-Y Jelly (because she’s now of an age when lubrication is necessary before sex), and waking up early and using the bathroom to “get that all out of the way before they get up.”

Sex is not the subject of Alison Jean Lester’s terrific first novel; it’s a matter-of-fact presence in a life rich in romantic experience and practical knowledge. And that, for me, was the first surprise of this book. For all its literary ambitions, it’s not bloated with the kind of pretense that makes me run for the exits. In this novel-that-reads-like-a-memoir, Lillian is credible, likable, even lovable. In a word: real.

If I had to summarize, I’d say that these 238 pages tell the story of a woman who’s 60+, alone, with a healthy interest in sex and not much interest in figuring out what went wrong. That’s the novel’s second surprise: Lillian has no agenda, her book is not a screed. Born in the late 1930s, she grew up when a woman’s story was, to a great extent, the story of the man she married. But no one married Lillian; her story is not, in the conventional way, his story.

Looking for an overarching thesis about the lot of women? Look elsewhere. For Lillian, the story of her life doesn’t lead to any grand conclusion: “So many people say that everything happens for a reason. I’ve always felt that things happen because the things before them happen, that’s all.”

"That last sentence --- 'Actions are whispers compared to dreams' --- is, for me, as good as it gets. I don’t know who I love more: Lillian or Alison Jean Lester. If you pick up this book, you will soon have the same problem."

Let’s stop here and consider our lives. Do you see a cosmic plan unfolding for you? Do you assess your life through the prism of your hard work and focus and will? How much of who you are is just dumb luck? Bottom line: How do you explain that you are reading this in a room with heat and a computer that springs to life as soon as your fingers touch the keyboard and a dinner table set for two or more?

This comparison of your life to Lillian’s is an essential part of your reading of her book, especially if you’re a woman and you have a decent sex drive and the question of a man has not been permanently answered for you. But you probably won’t make that comparison right away, because, in the beginning, Lillian fills your head and heart, and you want so much for her to have a great life. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

Lillian’s story, in brief: In 1956, while she was at Vassar, she was offered a job as a typist in Munich. For six weeks. She arrived with one suit. Met a man. One thing led to another and she became secretary in the Paris bureau of a newspaper, and met Willis, and moved to London and then New York, and met Ted.

“The culture shock of Europe knocked the ability to judge other people’s behavior right out of me. Nobody came from where I came from or felt what I felt, so I adapted. Gay men loved how unconventionally I lived, I think. But I wanted to get married and have children. That had been the plan. Lovers and wine, cigarettes and skinny black clothes --- those were the detritus on the rings circling the planet of my dreams. I was in orbit and I couldn’t find my way across the void.”

How was she launched in orbit? Of course it started at home: a handsome, attentive father and a mother who didn’t appreciate him enough, so he lavished affection on his daughter. Lillian doesn’t lean on that explanation. She moves on to other men. Dave, who looks like a fashion model. Laszlo, the cosmopolitan Hungarian. Willis, a photographer from Texas, who picked her up at a café in Paris. And then, in 1968, her great love, Ted. Some single, some married, all more or less in charge. And thus:

“When you’re in a relationship you mold yourself to it. You curve your body around it and you curve your mind around it in order to maintain it. Sometimes you don’t realize you’re crippled until it’s too late.”

For the first hour, I read this book with a pen in hand, marking wildly, checking the jokes (there are many) and the stunning confrontations (ditto). Then I just surrendered. And marveled. I spoil nothing by quoting the last paragraph:

“I’ve always wondered why people look so much to action for meaning. When people tell you a story --- something that happened to them, something important --- don’t ask them what they did. Ask them what they wanted to do. What they want to do is who they are. Actions are whispers compared to dreams.”

That last sentence --- “Actions are whispers compared to dreams” --- is, for me, as good as it gets. I don’t know who I love more: Lillian or Alison Jean Lester. If you pick up this book, you will soon have the same problem.

(Betsy Ellis, thank you.)