Abacus Books Series

'Vinnie Miner, 54-year-old Anglophile professor, is in London on a six-month foundation grant. So is her young colleague, Fred Turner. Vinnie is plain and resignedly self-reliant; Fred is arrestingly handsome and moping after a breakup with his wife. Vinnie and Fred have love affairs in London. Fred's is a fraught liaison with a waitress while Vinnie drifts into a relationship with an engineer from Oklahoma she met on the plane, a brash uneducated stereotypical American who finally beguiles her (and the reader) with his uncomplicated goodness... I devoured the book at a sitting and then went back for a second dip at once' Penelope Lively, Sunday Telegraph

The Nowhere City

by Alison Lurie

Published 4 August 1975

War Between the Tates

by Alison Lurie

Published 12 June 1974

The War Between The Tates subtly dissects the disintegration of a perfect marriage. Brian Tate and his wife Erica seem to have it all: a strong relationship, beautiful children, good friends and enough money. But when Brian, a middle-aged professor of political science, begins an affair with a female student, the snug fabric of the Tates' lives starts to unravel alarmingly fast.

Alison Lurie enters into the worlds of husband, wife, adulteress and child with equal measures of empathy and humour in this richly imagined story of a family breakdown, set in the sharply observed domain of American academia.

Love and Friendship

by Alison Lurie and Allison Lurie

Published 29 October 1962

'Emmy Turner's marriage to a hard-working and dullish lecturer at Convert College suffers from various tensions. She is rich, he is poor, she can afford to be detached from Convers and its values, he can't and doesn't particularly wish he could. Emmy has a highly sensual affair with a non-creating musician-in-residence, and her husband suspects everyone but the right man, going nearly insane with jealousy in the process... All this is expertly managed by Lurie, but it is in her resolution of her characters that she shows her full powers... perceptive and intelligent' - Julian Mitchell, Sunday Times

The Truth about Lorin Jones

by Alison Lurie

Published 1 January 1988

Only Children

by Alison Lurie

Published 1 January 1979

It all begins very properly. Two nice married couples and their children go on a hot sumer weekend to a country house owned by an unmarried lady named Anna. But - as Mary Ann, aged eight, says -'Anna likes kids' parties because she like kids better then grownups. ' And somehow it is not long before these grownups seem to be getting younger; at first hesitantly, then with enthusiasm abandoning the conventions of adult behavious sliding ever deeper into a world of childish games and sudden passions and violent quarrels. As the practical Mary Ann and her dreamy, sensitive best friend Lolly watch this change they are at first excited, then puzzled, finally frightened and angry. Even Anna finds it hard to return to the adult world. As for the children, they have become - each in their own way - suddenly rather older; which is, as you choose, a comedy or a tragedy.

Real People

by Alison Lurie

Published 4 February 1972

Ilyria is a sort of Eden for writers and artists, where all practical problems can be forgotten. It is the perfect place for Janet Belle Smith to recharge her creative batteries amomg friends and kindred spirits. This year's eagerly anticipated trip is not like the other's but Janet isn't sure why. A twenty-year-old, conventioanlly pretty college girl, Anna May, is having a devastating effect on the other guests. Gerry and Nick are escaping from their houses full of children, Ricky from his interfering mother, Charlie from his ex-wife whose alimony he cannot pay. Why are they all falling under her spell and what effect will it have on Janet?

Imaginary Friends

by Alison Lurie

Published 26 June 1967