Truth and Consequences

Alison Lurie published ten novels, among them Foreign Affairs (which won the Pulitzer Prize), The Truth About Lorin Jones (winner of the Prix Femina étranger), and The Last Resort. She was also the author of many works of non-fiction, including The Language of Clothes, Don't Tell the Grownups, Familiar Spirits (a memoir of the poet James Merrill) and two collections of essays and reviews, Reading for Fun and Words and Worlds. She taught literature, folklore and creative writing at Cornell University for many years and was the Whiton Professor of American Literature emerita. She lived in upstate New York but also spent much time in Key West, Florida and in London, all of which provided settings for her fiction. She married the writer Edward Hower, and had three sons and three grandchildren. Alison Lurie died in 2020.

"Mordant and entertaining, and wonderfully expansive about a time, a place, and the corrosive effect of selfishness" -- Penelope Lively Spectator "Hours of bitter-sweet, highly intelligent fun" Scotsman "An enjoyably spiky minuet of human selfishness" The Times "Sly and funny. A deeply pleasurable page-turner" Observer "It is Lurie, not Updike whom people will one day read to discover what our life and times were really like. Dazzling intelligent, witty, perceptive and engaging, she is not to be missed" New Statesman