by Alison Lurie
First published 2006
Virginia Miner arrives in London with her research notes and her disdain for fellow Americans. The fifty-something professor plans to focus on children's folk rhymes for her upcoming book. She considers herself more English than American despite her passport. Then she meets an Oklahoma tourist whose cowboy style embarrasses and attracts her in equal measure. Their unlikely affair unfolds as her younger colleague Fred Turner struggles nearby. Fred came to London newly separated and broke, hoping his research would distract him from his misery. Instead he becomes entangled with a beautiful English actress whose unpredictable world pulls him further from his academic goals. Both Americans feel like outsiders in London. Both wrestle with loneliness that their romantic entanglements seem to deepen rather than cure. Vinnie discovers that her mortifying attraction to the plainspoken Oklahoman challenges everything she believes about herself. Fred finds that his actress opens doors to experiences that his academic life never offered, even as she remains fundamentally unknowable to him.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unlikely-romance
Setting: London, Oklahoma
Period: 20th-century
292 pages · Paperback · Random House Publishing Group