Foreign Affairs (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Alison Lurie
- First Published: 1984
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Satire
- Subjects: Class conflict, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Marriage, Prejudices or antipathies, Social life, 1980’s, England or English people, Adultery, Wit or humor, London, Learning or scholarship, Parties
- Locales: London, England
Foreign Affairs won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in fiction and was nominated for both the American Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. Lurie juxtaposes American characters with British ones in order to explore national traits of both. “It's a complex fate to be an American,” Henry James once said, and the complex fates of Lurie's two American academics in this novel are a good example.
In the opening chapter, Virginia “Vinnie” Miner, a small, plain, unmarried, fifty-four-year-old Corinth professor of children's literature, is traveling by plane to...
[The entire page is 1116 words long]
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