WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
Virginia Miner, a fifty-something, unmarried tenured professor, is in London to work on her new book about children’s folk rhymes. Despite carrying a U.S. passport, Vinnie feels essentially English and rather looks down on her fellow Americans. But in spite of that, she is drawn into a mortifying and oddly satisfying affair with an Oklahoman tourist who dresses more Bronco Billy than Beau Brummel.
Also in London is Vinnie’s colleague Fred Turner, a handsome, flat broke, newly separated, and thoroughly miserable young man trying to focus on his own research. Instead, he is distracted by a beautiful and unpredictable English actress and the world she belongs to.
Both American, both abroad, and both achingly lonely, Vinnie and Fred play out their confused alienation and dizzying romantic liaisons in Alison Lurie’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Smartly written, poignant, and witty, Foreign Affairs remains an enduring comic masterpiece.
“A splendid comedy, very bright, brilliantly written in a confident and original manner. The best book by one of our finest writers.”
–Elizabeth Hardwick
“There is no American writer I have read with more constant pleasure and sympathy. . . . Foreign Affairs earns the same shelf as Henry James and Edith Wharton.”
–John Fowles
“If you manage to read only a few good novels a year, make this one of them.”
–USA Today
“An ingenious, touching book.”
–Newsweek
“A flawless jewel.”
–Philadelphia Inquirer
- ISBN10 0812976312
- ISBN13 9780812976311
- Publish Date 14 November 2006 (first published 12 August 1984)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 304
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780812976311