The Truth About Lorin Jones (1992) - Plot & Excerpts
I first read this around fifteen years ago. I remember liking it fine, but not much else. It's been on my bookshelf since then, unnoticed, until this Christmas when my 86-year-old mother took it down and started reading. I'd forgotten all about it, but since, like the book's protagonist, I'm also an art historian turned writer, working on the lives of women artists, I knew I had to read it again (though my mom didn't love it). So as soon as she was done, I picked it up.A satire (though loving) of feminism, biography, the art world, artists, poets, lovers, lesbians & heteros. What's not to like? Polly Alter, failed painter turned art historian turned feminist biographer, doesn't know her own mind. Or libido. Or much of anything anymore. And she's turned to researching the life of one of her favorite painters, Lorin Jones, who died too young but left an inspiring oeuvre behind. Maybe understanding LJ will help her understand herself. Suspecting the artist's death was, literally or emotionally, on the hands of her male husband, dealer, father, lover, brother, Polly sets out to unearth the truth. What she finds surprises and changes her.This isn't a deep book, necessarily, but it's beautifully crafted and plotted and, to my mind, utterly satisfying. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Trounced by my inability to absolutely love every page of Gravity’s Rainbow like I was foolishly expecting (but secretly pleased to be contrary all the same) I decided to read something appropriately oppositional instead, filched from a friend’s mother’s sister’s library. And you can’t get less reliable than a friend’s mother’s sister’s library. Or in this case, you can. This novel boasts more hateful feminists than a backstage at a Le Tigre concert and more oleaginous male chauvinists than backstage at a Garth Brooks concert. The protagonist Polly is trying to write a book on mysterious painter (see title) Lorin Jones (ha, fooled you!) who she believes was ruined by patriarchal attitudes. She later learns this wasn’t the case and she was the absolute bitch. That’s your novel. Quite cunning and quite clever, workwomanlike on the prose level. But better than the first sixty-nine pages of Gravity’s Rainbow.
What do You think about The Truth About Lorin Jones (1992)?
I don't feel quite right listing this as 'already read', as after only 100 pages, I had to give up. For me, this is a rarity. Usually I power through to the end of any book, but Alison Lurie's characters proved too irritating for me to stomach any longer.The overplayed feminism of Polly Alter wound me up, but may well have been resolved towards the end, however after 100 pages of whining and sniping about the men in her life I was left bored and annoyed, and couldn't carry on. The only character I engaged with was Jeanne, but her role wasn't strong enough to hold the plot together. Lorin Jones herself was badly depicted; I found myself not caring what Polly found out about her.Rarely do I tire of a novel in this way, and I'm disappointed that I couldn't continue reading it. Unfortunately I won't be reading any more Alison Lurie in future.
—Lindsay
An excellent novel. Not only is it a good story, but it is so readably written that I am clear through its 328 pages in only a couple of days after having it recommended to me. As one of the blurbs on the back says, you can look at it like a modern Pride and Prejudice, showing you by concentrating on a small group of characters what relationships were like for everybody in a bygone society. Only in this case the bygone society is the American artsy crowd in 1988. You'll care about Polly Alter, the insecure protagonist of The Truth About Lorin Jones, as much as you cared about finding husbands for the Austen women. I speak obliquely so as not to tell you the plot, for it's quite an interesting plot and you should have the pleasure of hearing about it from Alison Lurie, not from me. She's written some other novels, and I'll look forward to them as well.
—Stven
