The War Between the Tates

The War Between the Tates - Paperback

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The War Between the Tates
  • The War Between the Tates
The War Between the Tates - Paperback

The War Between the Tates - Paperback

by Alison Lurie
$26.48
$26.48

Book Overview

by Alison Lurie (Author)

A husband's affair pushes a suburban wife to her breaking point in this "near perfect comedy of manners" by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Real People (The New York Times).

Erica Tate wouldn't mind getting up in the morning if her children were less intolerable. Until puberty struck, Jeffrey and Matilda were absolute darlings, but in the last year, they have become sullen, insufferable little monsters. A forty-year-old housewife out of work and out of mind, she finds little happiness in the small college town of Corinth.

Erica's husband, Brian, a political science professor, is so deeply immersed in university life--or more accurately in the legs of his mistress, a half-literate flower child named Wendy--that he either doesn't notice his wife's misery or simply doesn't care. Worst of all, their pleasant little neighborhood is transforming into a subdivision. As new ranch houses spring up around their once idyllic home, Erica's marriage inches closer to disaster.

When the Tate household tips into full-scale emotional combat, Erica must do her best to ensure that she comes out on top. In this darkly comic tale of a family at civil war, the National Book Award-shortlisted author of Foreign Affairs dives into the deterioration of a marriage.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alison Lurie including rare images from the author's collection.

Author Biography

Alison Lurie (1926-2020) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. Born in Chicago and raised in White Plains, New York, she joined the English department at Cornell University in 1970, where she taught courses on children's literature, among others. Her first novel, Love and Friendship (1962), is a story of romance and deception among the faculty of a snowbound New England college. It won favorable reviews and established her as a keen observer of love in academia. It was followed by the well-received The Nowhere City (1966) and The War Between the Tates (1974). In 1984, she published Foreign Affairs, her best-known novel, which traces the erotic entanglements of two American professors in England. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985. Her most recent novel is The Last Resort (1998). In addition to her novels, Lurie's interest in children's literature led to three collections of folk tales and two critical studies of the genre. Lurie officially retired from Cornell in 1998, but continued to teach and write in the years following. In 2012, she was awarded a two-year term as the official author of the state of New York.

Number of Pages: 278
Dimensions: 0.64 x 9 x 6 IN
Publication Date: September 01, 2026
ISBN9798337211558
Author Alison Lurie
PublisherOpen Road Media
GenreLiterature
FormatPaperback
PublishedSeptember 2026
LanguageENG- English
Pages278
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Family Life Fiction Literary Women

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About Alison Lurie

Alison Lurie is the author of many highly praised novels, including The War Between the Tates, The Truth About Lorin Jones (Prix Femina Etranger), and Foreign Affairs (Pulitzer Prize for fiction). Her most recent book was Familiar Spirits. She teaches writing, folklore, and literature at Cornell University.

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