The War Between the Tates [Paperback]

Alison Lurie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1991

Originally published in 1974, a humorous novel set against an American academic background, telling of how a professor's stable relationship and family life comes apart when he embarks upon an ill-advised affair with a female student. By the author of REAL PEOPLE, ONLY CHILDREN and FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books (P) (January 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380711354
• ISBN-13: 978-0380711352
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,613,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still great after all these years, March 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The War Between the Tates (Mass Market Paperback)

This novel seems to be out of print again and is hard to find even in second hand stores. This is a shame because the breakup of the marriage of the prim professor Brian and his wife Erica is a fine and subtly humorous novel. The novel is set in the Vietnam era as a background to the campus setting, but it is also is part of the atmosphere that leads to a seachange in the lives of all the characters.

Brian passively allows himself to be drawn into an cheesy, self serving affair with a nubile student. One of the novels digs at colleges of the sixties is that the girl is barely literate, which is apparently no impediment to being a graduate student.

Erica, who has been a demure and dutiful wife has an intellect as sharp as her professor husband She is less than happy with the situation, but is determined to put Brain's feet to the fire on this issue. She also finds that with Brian out of the house she is able to deal with the many annoyances imposed on her by her prissy spouse, such as his insistence that she does not work on campus.

Less pleasant are her two teen children who are cleverly likened to the South Vietnamese of the day, dependant for aid on people they resent and her weedy, weird college friend Sandy, the only male available to spend time with her. Lurie's description of events are smart, satirical and just plain funny. Most importantly this is novel about change and the need and the inevitablity of moving forward.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars smart, funny, sad, March 13, 2004

By 

"zanoza" (HOUSTON, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The War Between the Tates (Paperback)

This was the first novel by Alison Lurie that I've read and it made a deep impression. It is very witty and humorous as are all her works but it is among the darkest. It's fine enough to have gotten the Pulitzer except that the direction of the author's sarcasm would, I imagine, be a downer for the prize-determiners. Happily Foreign Affairs, which got the Pulitzer, directs its sarcasm more across the board, for instannce at the interactions between Brits and Americans; this time the fact that the two protagonists are English professors is evidently forgivable.

All her fiction is interesting, but here is what I like best, aside from the two aforementioned novels: The Truth About Lorin Jones, The Nowhere City, Imaginary Friends.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-drawn characters; entertaining novel set in academia, July 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: War Between the Tates (Hardcover)

The first half of this book shows a horribly plausible example of a middle aged marriage falling apart at the seams, due to chance happenings. The psychology of the husband, Brian Tate, is thoroughly and sympathetically examined - he looks like a success, but his own self-view is very different. This, and the great feeling of the palce and period (1969) are the strengths of this novel.

Its weaknesses are that it gets less convincing towards the end, and the author's rather simplistic femanism gets the better of her, particularly when pontificating on male relationships.

Overall, not one of her best, but still a good read.