The Truth about Lorin Jones is a retelling of Henry James's nineteenth-century novel of social criticism, The Bostonians. (1886). In The Bostonians, Verena Tarrant, a lecturer, is caught between two forceful personalities: Olive Chancellor, a feminist who hates all males and is perhaps a lesbian, and Basil Ransom, a Southerner who wants Verena to live a conventional life as his wife. At the end of the novel, Verena chooses Ransom. In Lurie's novel, Polly Alter, a biographer, is also caught between two forceful personalities: Jeanne, a feminist lesbian who hates males, and Mac Cameron, the former lover of Lorin Jones. At the end of the novel, Polly, like Verena, chooses a relationship with a man when she decides to move to Florida to live with Mac.

Criticisms leveled at The Bostonians also apply to The Truth about Lorin Jones. Henry James meant The Bostonians to...