SOURCE: Thwaite, Anthony. “Ruined by Men.” London Review of Books 10, no. 15 (1 September 1988): 24-6.

In the following excerpt, Thwaite praises Lurie's astute commentary in The Truth about Lorin Jones on the craft of writing a biography.

Alison Lurie's new novel is, among other things, an anthology of several characters from her earlier novels. Readers unfamiliar with these books need not be apprehensive, however: The Truth about Lorin Jones is perfectly self-contained. Indeed, that self-contained quality helps to account for the powerful, painful oppressiveness of the book, as Polly Alter becomes more and more deeply enmeshed in her quest for the eponymous woman she is pursuing.

For Polly is engaged in writing a biography of Lorin Jones, a painter who died some twenty years before the quest begins. Polly has recently become divorced, has a teenage son whom she adores, and earns her living in a New York museum. At...