A House for Alice
From the Women’s Prize shortlisted author of Ordinary People
by Diana Evans
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Pub Date 6 Apr 2023 | Archive Date 6 May 2023
Random House UK, Vintage | Chatto & Windus
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Description
'Heart and humour in abundance... exquisite' The Times
After fifty years in London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. Her children are divided on whether she stays or goes, and in the wake of their father's death, the imagined stability of the family begins to fray.
Meanwhile youngest daughter Melissa has never let go of a love she lost, and Michael in return, now married to Nicole, is haunted by the failed perfection of the past. As Alice's final decision draws closer, all that is hidden between them rises to the surface . . .
Set against the shadows of a city and a country in turmoil, Diana Evans's ordinary people confront fundamental questions. How should we raise our children? How to do right by our parents? And how, in the midst of everything, can we satisfy ourselves?
'A gorgeous novel from one of our most outstanding writers' Bernardine Evaristo
'Diana Evans is fast proving herself a novelist to rank alongside Anne Tyler' Daily Mail
'A warm but devastating narrative... Like any Evans novel, it is unputdownable' Harper's Bazaar
A New York Times *100 Notable Books of 2023*
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Selected in Best Reads of 2023 by The Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, New Statesman and Good Housekeeping
A Waterstones Book of the Year
The Bookseller Editor’s Choice
The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Starred Kirkus Review
Guardian Book of the Day
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781784744267 |
| PRICE | £18.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 352 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 1021532
The book has an interesting start tying together the disaster of Grenfall and a fire at the same time in the house of an elderly man who lives alone. We discover his family and their interconnected parts. Alice his Nigerian wife, who is separated from him, and who craves to return to Nigeria to complete her circle of life and her three daughters and their families. This is a book about love, life, interconnectedness, marriage, childhood and so many more relationships. it is told sympathetically from so many angles including race and politics. I loved the book and I definitely did not want it to end as I was enjoying it so much! The characters were drawn sensitively with all their successes and failures. I highly recommend it and it certainly made an impression on me.
Sophia B, Media/Journalist
I got about a quarter of the way through this before I realised, to my delight, it was a sequel to Ordinary People. Even if it wasn't, though, I was hooked. After a mysterious, leisurely beginning, Evans drops us straight into Grenfell. Khadija Saye and Mary Mendy, among others, haunt these pages as two or three warring families try to find their way back to happiness.
I loved new character Nicole and the comments about Ed Sheeran and Beyonce made me laugh out loud. I also loved how an older gentleman in a suit at a dance is described as 'dapper like a Linton!' (I always felt rather sorry for Stephanie, who is portrayed in the first book as slightly basic, and I really feel sorry for her now. Two thirds of the way through something so awful happens I nearly stopped reading. However, it was so good I picked the book up shortly again afterwards).
Once again, Evans takes us through the weird and unloved parts of London and its borders (Catford, Gipsy Hill, Merstham) though this time the vista broadens to Nigeria, as Alice, a woman nearing the end of her life (but not quite there yet) makes preparations to go home. But what is home? What is a house? What is a marriage? Who are we, and how much is that shaped by the needs and wants of the people we love?
Evans is unafraid to face these questions, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say the book argues for the existence of ghosts or an afterlife, there are a couple of hints that, while some things stay lost forever, some can also be found.
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