How long is it?
304 pages in the Random House Trade Paperbacks 2006 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Romance
Foreign Affairs
CanonicalPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1985Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 40 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 304 pagesRandom House Trade Paperbacks · 2006
- Reading time
- 6 hat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Moderate
- Emotional intensity
- 3 / 5
About 6 h · at 30 minutes a day, about 13 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
In London to collect children's playground rhymes, American professor Vinnie Miner considers England her spiritual home and dismisses Chuck Mumpson, the Oklahoma tourist she meets on the flight. His search for English ancestors brings them together again, and her disdain complicates an unexpected attraction. Meanwhile, her younger colleague Fred Turner, researching John Gay while separated from his wife, falls for actress Rosemary Radley and enters a social world he barely understands.
Reader notes
The narration alternates between the professors, dryly exposing the self-deceptions behind their romantic embarrassments. It's a literary comedy of manners, alert to loneliness beneath social pretensions and frank about adult desire without graphic sexual detail.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Descriptive · Witty
- Tone
- Humorous · Reflective · Romantic · Wistful
- Structure
- Braided
- Driven by
- Character · Relationships
- Point of view
- Third person, omniscient
- Setting
- London, England
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Belonging
- Identity
- Isolation
- Love
- Marriage
- Work
Content notes
- Violence
- None
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Mild
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- None
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Standing and awards
Canonical
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1985
- National Book Award finalist, 1984
- National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, 1984
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Random House Trade Paperbacks · 2006 · Paperback. ISBN 9780812976311.
How long does it take to read Foreign Affairs?
About 6 hours at 50 pages an hour, based on the 304-page Random House Trade Paperbacks edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Alison Lurie
Alison Lurie was an American novelist and academic whose fiction often places professors inside sharply observed comedies of manners. She uses wit, social embarrassment, and competing points of view to examine vanity, desire, and the stories educated people tell about themselves. Foreign Affairs follows two American academics in London through parallel romantic and professional disruptions, testing their ideas about England against daily loneliness and misjudgment. Lurie also wrote criticism on children’s literature and dress. In The Language of Clothes, she draws on history, sociology, psychology, and anthropology to interpret fabric, color, cut, and formality as signs of status, allegiance, aspiration, and concealment.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Publication year
- 2006
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 304
- ISBN
- 9780812976311
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1984
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Romance · Literary fiction · Campus novel · Contemporary literary · Comedy
- Editions
- 12
- Languages
- 3 (German, English, Unspecified)