Michiko Kakutani
Whereas The War Between the Tates nimbly captured the emotional weather of the late 1960's and early 70's, Ms. Lurie's new book, Truth and Consequences, doesn't even try to give the reader a big picture window on the way we live today. Still, it provides two engaging central characters…And the story motors along smoothly on sheer professional craft. The result isn't a terribly original or memorable novel, but a pleasant enough read nonetheless.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Lurie's various academic romances, set against the backdrop of a thinly veiled Cornell University, point in a straight line to tragicomic double-think relationship writers like Lorrie Moore. This latest foray begins promisingly: Jane MacKenzie fails to recognize her own husband, Alan, as he approaches their house from a distance, so bent and changed is he by his aching back. He's an architecture professor (expert on Victoriana); she's a university administrator. When visiting poet Delia Delaney takes up residence, it's Jane who has to attend to her diva-like demands, while simultaneously trying to cope with an incapacitated Alan. Once he's up and around, though, sexy and selfish Delia toys with, then seduces him. The affair gives Alan a midlife lift, and, on discovery, gives Jane a reason to leave him, perhaps for Henry, Delia's ombudsman husband and Jane's highly organized mirror-image. The problem is that Lurie, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning Foreign Affairs is everything this isn't, doesn't seem much interested in fleshing out her characters' romps. Remedial repetitions of basic facts, character descriptions and plot points throughout give the proceedings a strangely clinical feel, as if her characters' reactions were too base to engage with fully: they are reported almost dutifully, though not without offhand flashes of crackly brilliance. 5-city author tour. (Oct. 10) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
A Pulitzer Prize winner for her novel Foreign Affairs, Lurie looks at what can happen when two couples, each seemingly well matched, find themselves at different places in their lives. Jane and Alan Mackenzie, residents of a fictional college town, had what seemed to be the perfect marriage until Alan suffers a back injury that changes his life and demeanor. Jane, feeling obliged by her wedding vows, becomes his overworked and underappreciated caregiver. But then the beautiful and conniving Delia Delany, a visiting scholar, picks Alan as her next conquest. Enjoying the attentions of someone he sees as finally understanding his pain, Alan willingly follows her. Meanwhile, finding themselves caught in the crossfire of the affair, Jane and Delia's oft-overlooked husband, Henry Hull, are driven together and wind up falling in love. Lurie explores what happens when the truth isn't always told and the consequences of our every choice. Engrossing and wonderfully written, this novel would make a good book club selection. Highly recommended, especially where Lurie's other books are popular. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/05.]-Leann Restaino, Girard, OH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A once-happy marriage jumps the tracks when a charismatic writer accepts a fellowship at the small college in upstate New York where both husband and wife work. Jane and Alan Mackenzie are a model couple. He is a 51-year-old professor of architecture and expert on Victorian-era follies (the faux ruins of stone towers and hermitages Britain's landed gentry built to enhance their estates); she, 11 years younger, is a quietly in-charge college bureaucrat who runs a program for visiting scholars. Told in alternating chapters from the perspective of husband and wife, the novel charts the disintegration of their marriage, which initially begins to fray when a minor injury on a volleyball court-Alan admits he was showing off for the younger faculty-segues into chronic back pain. Their home life becomes a hellish stand-off between need and resentment. While Jane is stepping and fetching for her husband in her off hours-prescriptions for pain killers, packs of ice, heating pads, more pillows-her day job as administrator is transformed by the arrival of Delia Delaney, renowned writer and unrepentant id-on-wheels. Only Delia's long-suffering husband Henry knows how demanding she can be: She needs a sofa for her office. Less light. Fewer visitors. A deadbolt on her door. Silence! Jane and Henry find they are on common ground as helpmates-and commiserate with one another, complicating Jane's self-image as a "good" person. Alan and Delia also discern they have much in common. Delia, who suffers from migraines, helps Alan own his pain, find his inner artist and resurrect his sexuality. Pulitzer Prize-winner Lurie (The Last Resort, 1998, etc.) is a keen observer of consciences in conflict. There arepassages here (though too few) that remind the reader of her considerable artistic authority. But the characters rarely act outside selfish motives, and in the end, who cares who ends up with whom? They all deserve each other. A tepid affair by an author capable of incandescence.
From the Publisher
A wry, insightful, thoroughly enjoyable tale about how men and women choose their demons and their lovers, and the sacrifices they’re willing to make for both.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Delightful . . . Her characters are, as always, wonderfully imperfect.” —The New York Review of Books
