Alison Lurie (1926–2020)
Author of Foreign Affairs
About the Author
Novelist Alison Lurie was born September 3, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois to Harry and Bernice Stewart Lurie. She is an American novelist and academic. Lurie won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. She received an A.B. from Radcliffe College in 1947. After finishing college, Lurie show more worked as an editorial assistant for Oxford University Press in New York, but she wanted to make a living as a writer. After years of receiving rejection slips, she devoted herself to raising her children. Lurie had taught at Cornell University since 1968, becoming a full professor in 1976 specializing in folklore and children's literature. Lurie's first novel was "Love and Friendship" (1962) and its characters were modeled on friends and colleagues. Afterwards, she published "The Nowhere City" (1965), "Imaginary Friends" (1967), "The War Between the Tates" (1974), which tells of the collapse of a perfect marriage between a professor and his wife, "Only Children" (1979), and "The Truth About Lorin Jones" (1988). "Foreign Affairs" (1984) won the Pulitzer Prize; it tells the story of two academics in England who learn more about love than academia. Her more recent books include the novels "Women and Ghosts" (1994), and "The Last Resort" (1998), and a work of nonfiction, "Familiar Spirits (2001)." Among her awards and honors, she received honorary degrees from the University of Oxford (2006) and the University of Nottingham (2007). And from 2012-2014, she was the official author of the state of New York. Alison Lurie died on December 3, 2020 in Ithaca, NY at the age of 94. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Alison Lurie portrait session on January 31, 1989 in France
Works by Alison Lurie
The Double Poet 1 copy
Associated Works
The Company They Kept, Volume Two: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships (2011) — Contributor — 21 copies
Onthebus No. 8 and 9 — Contributor — 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1926-09-03
- Date of death
- 2020-12-03
- Burial location
- Pleasant Grove Cemetery
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Place of death
- Ithaca, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
Ithaca, New York, USA
Key West, Florida, USA
White Plains, New York, USA
Los Angeles, California, USA
Massachusetts, USA (show all 7)
London, England, UK - Education
- Radcliffe College
- Occupations
- Professor of American Literature
novelist
critic - Relationships
- Hower, Edward (second husband)
Bishop, John Peale (ex-father-in-law)
Bishop, Jonathan (first husband) - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature, 1989)
Cornell University - Awards and honors
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award ( [1978]) (fiction)
Doctor of Literature honoris causa, Oxford University - Agent
- Jackson, Melanie
Members
Discussions
May 2021: Alison Lurie in Monthly Author Reads (May 2021)
Reviews
Foreign Affairs: A Novel by Alison Lurie
first book i read on my ipad. interesting experience in itself. lurie's writing was better than some of the content. she describes both characters and settings very well and uses so many excellent metaphors. i was interested in most of the characters, even ones i hardly cared for. the ending really surprised me, and not to spoil anything, but i was very disappointed in it.
½
For me, this book didn't live up to its title. Sure, it's kind of about "the subversive power of children's literature," but it's actually mostly about the biographies of certain children's authors and how certain children's stories are archetypes for adult literary fiction. And it's not a cohesive book at all. It's a series of essays that were probably originally intended for lit crit mags. When Lurie does address subversiveness, it's usually historical (the book was published in 1990, so I didn't expect nearly every essay to be about Victorian social norms).
I wanted this book to address a subject that really interests me, which is the way some kids books intentionally guide their readers toward a certain way of thinking. I was actually hoping this book would be a better version of my college seminar paper, which was about how Disney movies paved the way for gay rights. Oh well.… (more)
I wanted this book to address a subject that really interests me, which is the way some kids books intentionally guide their readers toward a certain way of thinking. I was actually hoping this book would be a better version of my college seminar paper, which was about how Disney movies paved the way for gay rights. Oh well.… (more)
I read this book two or three years ago and what I remember most vividly about it is that Vinnie is followed around by an imaginary dog that represents her self-image (or something like that).
I'm reading Lorrie Moore's [b:Birds of America|19631|Birds of America Stories|Lorrie Moore|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223320940s/19631.jpg|1769] right now and so I decided to look up her bio and found out she was taught by Alison Lurie at Cornell. I was like, Where do I know that name? And then I remembered that I read this back when I had this crazy idea that I would read every Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.… (more)
I'm reading Lorrie Moore's [b:Birds of America|19631|Birds of America Stories|Lorrie Moore|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223320940s/19631.jpg|1769] right now and so I decided to look up her bio and found out she was taught by Alison Lurie at Cornell. I was like, Where do I know that name? And then I remembered that I read this back when I had this crazy idea that I would read every Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.… (more)
Enjoyed this tremendously but perhaps it is because I could so identify with Vinnie and her depressive imaginary dog who slopes around whenever she’s feeling blue.
Poor Vinnie finds happiness but doesn’t appreciate it, and her fellow academic falls terribly in love with an inappropriate target and both of them are so wonderfully good at procrastination very little work gets done at all.
Lovely, well-rounded characters with serious issues but who feel so very familiar I wanted to sit down with them for a brew. Well, Vinnie anyway.
An excellent read for fans of Britain, academe, and the minute but persistent snobberies we all carry about for no known reason.… (more)
Poor Vinnie finds happiness but doesn’t appreciate it, and her fellow academic falls terribly in love with an inappropriate target and both of them are so wonderfully good at procrastination very little work gets done at all.
Lovely, well-rounded characters with serious issues but who feel so very familiar I wanted to sit down with them for a brew. Well, Vinnie anyway.
An excellent read for fans of Britain, academe, and the minute but persistent snobberies we all carry about for no known reason.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 31
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 5,747
- Popularity
- #4,292
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 117
- ISBNs
- 295
- Languages
- 12
- Favorited
- 6
