Only Children
by Alison Lurie
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In the midst of the Great Depression, two families spend a holiday weekend together-but while their daughters cement their friendship, their parents tear their marriages apart Dozing in the back seat of her father's car, Mary Ann Hubbard is the happiest eight-year-old in the country. It's 1935, and she and her parents are going to spend Fourth of July weekend with her headmistress and the Zimmerns, whose daughter Lolly is Mary Ann's best friend from school. While the two little girls frolic show more in the attic, endowing the rambling old house with wonder, creativity, and imagination, their parents ar show lessTags
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A brilliant short(ish) Lurie novel about two families spending a Fourth of July weekend on a farm in upstate New York. Set during the Depression (the time of Lurie's own childhood), and told from the point of view of 9-year-old Mary Ann Hubbard (the same character appears as Miranda Fenn in Lurie's first novel, Love and Friendship), this book is a delicate and intense study of the relationships between parents, children, men, and women. As with all of Lurie's work, it is moving while being completely unsentimental.
two children, both an only child;
they are only children, but look what they may perceive!
they are only children, but look what they may perceive!
Mar 24, 2010Dutch
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34+ Works 6,180 Members
Novelist Alison Lurie was born September 3, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois to Harry and Bernice Stewart Lurie. She is an American novelist and academic. Lurie won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. She received an A.B. from Radcliffe College in 1947. After finishing college, Lurie worked as an editorial assistant for Oxford show more University Press in New York, but she wanted to make a living as a writer. After years of receiving rejection slips, she devoted herself to raising her children. Lurie had taught at Cornell University since 1968, becoming a full professor in 1976 specializing in folklore and children's literature. Lurie's first novel was "Love and Friendship" (1962) and its characters were modeled on friends and colleagues. Afterwards, she published "The Nowhere City" (1965), "Imaginary Friends" (1967), "The War Between the Tates" (1974), which tells of the collapse of a perfect marriage between a professor and his wife, "Only Children" (1979), and "The Truth About Lorin Jones" (1988). "Foreign Affairs" (1984) won the Pulitzer Prize; it tells the story of two academics in England who learn more about love than academia. Her more recent books include the novels "Women and Ghosts" (1994), and "The Last Resort" (1998), and a work of nonfiction, "Familiar Spirits (2001)." Among her awards and honors, she received honorary degrees from the University of Oxford (2006) and the University of Nottingham (2007). And from 2012-2014, she was the official author of the state of New York. Alison Lurie died on December 3, 2020 in Ithaca, NY at the age of 94. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Comme des enfants
- Original title
- Only Children
- Original publication date
- 1979
- People/Characters
- Bill Hubbard; Honey Hubbard; Mary Ann Hubbard; Dan Zimmern; Celia Zimmern; Lennie Zimmern (show all 7); Lolly Zimmern
- First words
- Once upon a time, Mary Ann tells herself, there was a beautiful princess named Miranda who had a wish-box.
- Original language*
- Anglais (Royaume-Uni) (Royaume-Uni)
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Members
- 173
- Popularity
- 188,395
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.71)
- Languages
- English, French, German, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 15
- ASINs
- 5
