Search results for ""author alison lurie""

'A brilliant and seemingly effortless accomplishment...steady uninterrupted delight' Sunday TelegraphFaculty wife Emily Stockwell Turner is beautiful, rich, and principled. However, five years in a marriage devoid of passion is enough to propel Emmy, despite her principles, into an affair with a silver-tongued self-confessed libertine. Her husband, a dull, hard-working lecturer, suspecting everyone but the right man, sends himself half mad with jealousy. The shocking, unforeseen consequences of their affair shatter Emmy's most cherished delusions about friendship, romance, and the ties that bind.'Lurie is and really is, different. She writes with great elegance, as frostily clear as the climate she describes; and with sharp intelligence piercing through every sentence. She is very funny as well' Observer

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Jenny has devoted her life to her husband, the famous naturalist Wilkie Walker. But this year, as winter comes on, Wilkie seems distant and depressed. In desperation Jenny persuades him to visit Key West, but the sun and tropical scenery do nothing to cheer him up. As he grows even stranger, Jenny becomes involved with some intriguing local characters including Gerry, an ex-beatnik poet, and Lee, the dramatically attractive manager of a women-only guest house.Wife, secretary, confidante, housekeeper - might Jenny at last break free from her role as Wilkie's support act?WITH A NEW PREFACE FROM ALISON LURIE'Full of sparkish - indeed Muriel Sparkish - observations and gently subversive wit... Lurie beautifully handles the ecstatic liberation of lesbian love' Independent

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Brian and Erica Tate appear to have every advantage in life: academic careers, two children, nice friends and money. But when Brian begins an affair with one of his students the disintegration of their lives is swift and shocking. Things spiral when a protest against a sexist professor at the university ramps up and Brian, hopelessly compromised by split loyalties, gets caught up in the action.Can the Tates marriage survive? Lurie skewers both sides in this brilliant campus satire of 1960s feminism, parenthood, infidelity and academic pomposity.'Her humour is a delight and she writes with an almost unholy relish' Irish Times

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'Delightful... Her characters are, as always, wonderfully imperfect' New York Review of BooksAlan has changed because he's injured his back. Pain has altered his appearance and made him glum, demanding and resentful. His wife Jane has to do everything for him - fetching, carrying, shopping, cooking, even dressing and undressing him. Sometimes she longs for escape.Delia is a writer and researcher specialising in fairy tales - she is, in her own estimation, a 'Great Artist'. Her husband, Henry, manages her every need making certain Delia gets everything she desires including spectacular doses of adulation.Can Delia coax Alan out of his grumpiness? Can Henry stop Jane feeling guilty? Can the two couples break out of their fixed roles?'I am re-reading with enormous delight and greed. If you're new to [Lurie], lucky you: marvellously astute comedies of social, moral and sexual manners, her witty exuberance is nothing short of inspirational' Helen Simpson

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'Marvellous entertainment' Sunday TimesJust married and newly arrived in Los Angeles are Paul and Katherine Cattleman. Paul responds immediately to the sunny, sprawling cosmopolitan city but to Katherine the main impression is of dirt and smog. Paul explores his surroundings and discovers Ceci, a girl who could be the incarnation of the city's uninhibited ways, while Katherine meets Iz a psychiatrist who recognises her unhappiness and sets out to help her. Under the bright west coast sun, the city begins to affect the couple in separate, subtle but significant ways, shining new light on their marriage with moving, funny and unexpected consequences.

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'If you're coming to Lurie for the first time, you must begin with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Foreign Affairs' GuardianVinnie Miner is an American professor of children's literature on her way to London for six months of research. Settling into her aeroplane seat she finds herself accosted by Chuck, a brash engineer wearing cowboy boots. She never imagines she'll see him again. But wet, windy London turns out to be the setting for fresh beginnings, and for Vinnie, a place to take up space, breathe the air, and to refuse to become a minor character in one's own life. Foreign Affairs is a comic, heart-wrenching masterpiece of unexpected romance. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY AMANDA CRAIG

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