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Foreign Affairs | Introduction

Foreign Affairs (1984) is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel by American author Alison Lurie. Set mostly in London, it is the story of two American professors of English from an Ivy League university who spend several months in the capital city of England. Ostensibly, Vinnie Miner, an unmarried woman in her fifties who specializes in children's literature, and Fred Turner, a twenty-nine-year-old eighteenth-century specialist who has just separated from his wife, are in London to work on their academic research projects. However, during their stay, both are drawn into unexpected romantic relationships—Vinnie with an American tourist from Oklahoma and Fred with a glamorous English actress—that have very different consequences for each character. Lurie's witty comedy of manners plays with some of the cultural differences between England and America while spinning a tale that explores the illusions of love as well as the wisdom, joy, and sadness it may bring.

Foreign Affairs Summary

Chapter 1

Foreign Affairs begins as Vinnie Miner, a small, plain-looking professor of children's literature at an Ivy League university, boards a flight to London. In her imagination, she is accompanied by a small dog called Fido, who represents self-pity, a fault to which Vinnie is prone.

Vinnie, who is unmarried, is to stay for six months in England. She has received a grant to study the folk-rhymes of schoolchildren, a subject on which she is an expert. But she is unhappy because she has just read an attack on her work by L. D. Zimmern, an American professor, in a national magazine. Zimmern thinks her work is trivial and a waste of public funds.

On the plane, Vinnie reluctantly gets drawn into a conversation with Charles (Chuck) Mumpson, a sanitation engineer from Oklahoma who is starting on a two-week package tour of England. Vinnie finds him ignorant and crass.

After the plane lands at midnight at Heathrow Airport, Vinnie is unable to find a taxi. Mumpson arranges for her to ride on the tourist bus to downtown London. When the bus drops her off, she takes a taxi to the flat she is renting on Regent's Park Road. She feels relieved that she has finally arrived.

Chapter 2

At six in the evening, Fred Turner waits for a train in the Underground station at Notting Hill Gate in London. He is an assistant professor of English at Corinth University, where Vinnie teaches. Fred is over twenty-five years younger than Vinnie and much more attractive—tall, dark, and handsome, in fact. He is in London for five months doing research on John Gay, an eighteenth-century English writer. Fred is not happy, however, because he has just split up with his wife, Ruth. He is also frustrated because he is not getting an authentic experience of London; he attributes this in part to the disorientation that comes with being a tourist. He is also short of money.

Fred arrives for supper at the flat of his American friends, Joe and Debby Vogeler. The Vogelers, who teach at colleges in Southern California, are on leave in London and are disillusioned with it. They do not like the weather or the people, and they are unimpressed by all the tourist spots. The Vogelers commiserate with Fred over his failed marriage.

As Fred returns home, he thinks back gloomily over how he met Ruth, an attractive, dark-haired photographer. Ruth is an outspoken radical feminist, and Fred's friends were not entirely comfortable with his choice of bride.

Fred plans to attend a party given by Vinnie later that week. He does not know Vinnie well, but she will have a say in whether he gets tenure at Corinth University, so he does not wish to offend her by turning down her invitation.

Chapter 3

Several weeks later, in March, Vinnie meets her friend, the editor Edwin Francis, at a restaurant. Edwin tells her that Fred Turner has become romantically involved with the famous English actress Rosemary Radley, whom he met at Vinnie's party. Vinnie is surprised by this news and tells Edwin that the relationship cannot last for long, since Fred has to return to Corinth in June to teach summer school. Edwin worries that if Rosemary gets too smitten with Fred, she may start skipping her professional commitments, and he asks Vinnie to persuade Fred to break off the relationship. Vinnie refuses.

The next day, Vinnie studies in the London Library Reading Room. She regrets that she asked Fred to her party, since she normally tries to keep her English friends and her American colleagues apart. She does not quite trust Rosemary Radley, and even though they meet fairly often because they get invited to the same parties, they do not like each other much.

After she leaves the library, she unexpectedly encounters Chuck Mumpson in a department store. Vinnie is not pleased to see him again, but she lets him buy her tea. She is surprised that he is still in London, but he tells her he has been laid off at work and has plenty of time. He is searching for information about an ancestor of his, a great lord who lived in the southwest of England and later became a hermit, living in a cave in the woods and becoming known as a kind of wise man. Vinnie begins to feel a professional interest in Chuck, and she advises him about how to proceed in his search.

Chapter 4

Fred, who is in love with Rosemary partly because she is the opposite of his wife, has arranged to meet her at a theater. Rosemary is usually late, and this time she keeps him waiting for over forty minutes. They quarrel over Fred's desire to pay for his own dinner later that evening. He does not like her always paying for him.

Fred and Rosemary are weekend guests at the country house of Rosemary's aristocratic friends, Penelope (Posy) Billings and her husband, Sir James (Jimbo), who is out of the country. Other guests are Edwin Francis, Nico (a young male friend of Edwin's, with whom he has a sexual relationship), and a nondescript middle-aged man named William Just, who at first appears to be a cousin of Posy. Fred feels provincial and out of place in this sophisticated English company.

After dinner, the group plays charades, but the game is interrupted by the unexpected return of Jimbo from his business trip abroad. Posy does not want him to find them playing charades, so she orders everyone out and greets Jimbo as if nothing were going on. She orders William to the boathouse and orders Fred and Nico to pack up everything in William's room. Fred wonders why William has to be banished,... » Complete Foreign Affairs Summary