Brian and Erica Tate appear to have every advantage in life: academic careers, two children, nice friends and money. But when Brian begins an affair with one of his students the disintegration of their lives is swift and shocking. Things spiral when a protest against a sexist professor at the university ramps up and Brian, hopelessly compromised by split loyalties, gets caught up in the action.

Can the Tates marriage survive? Lurie skewers both sides in this brilliant campus satire of 1960s feminism, parenthood, infidelity and academic pomposity.

'Her humour is a delight and she writes with an almost unholy relish' Irish Times

Put together with such skill the effect is something glorious in its entirety and flawless under the closest scrutiny; like a fine piece of needlework * The Times *
Her humour is a delight and she writes with an almost unholy relish * Irish Times *
Lurie miraculously seems to understand men as well as she understands women... she constructs her American academic backdrops with the craftsmanlike skill; she evinces rare wisdom, wit, and compassion; and she writes like an angel * Sunday Times *
Intellectual comedy... a pleasure

Alison Lurie has 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 is 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 is now the Whiton Professor of American Literature emerita. She lives in upstate New York but has also spent much time in Key West, Florida and in London, all of which have provided settings for her fiction. She is married to the writer Edward Hower, and has three sons and three grandchildren.