SOURCE: Stark, John. “Alison Lurie's Career.” Hollins Critic 26, no. 1 (February 1989): 1-7.

In the following essay, Stark provides an overview of Lurie's novels from Love and Friendship to The Truth about Lorin Jones, drawing attention to continuities and consistencies in the themes, settings, and characters of her fiction.

American fiction would be far richer but for the truncated careers of many of its creators. Early spectacular success exacerbated a few writers' psychological problems. Others sustained development only briefly and either stopped producing or repeatedly wrote essentially the same work. Still others, more adventurous, did experiment but did so by writing types of fiction that were virtually certain to be trivial or that were uncongenial to their talents. Because of this unfortunate high incidence of stunted growth, one contemplates with pleasure the careers of those writers who have developed and who have created a substantial body of important fictional works...