A House for Alice: From the Women’s Prize shortlisted author of Ordinary People

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Evans' style is sophisticated and the emotional geography of her novel is complex - without realising, as I read I was drawn into this family's quirks, bickering, wrong turns, kindnesses and tragedies and I might have been chatting with friends it was so real, recognisable. A House for Alice is a book that resonates deeply, shedding light on the enduring struggles faced by marginalized communities. It starts with two tragedies cause by fire and, as a result, I expected there to be crises and adversity to overcome but instead, I find middle class people dealing with, what seem to me, personal troubles rather than public issues (to use C. But after this initial pages it descended in name throwing with pretty much no way to learn who is who and how all this characters were connected.

An orchestral, richly textured portrait of interconnected middle-class Black lives in contemporary London . The novel is a study of identity, race, belonging, the collapse of society and incompetence of contemporary politicians. Perhaps if I did it would have been easier to keep track of the characters, and feel more invested in their stories. 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. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, the Guardian First Book, the Commonwealth Best First Book and the Times/Southbank Show Breakthrough awards, and nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.Through its narrative, the book sheds light on the ongoing struggles of racism and the quest for justice and equality in marginalized communities. As someone who perhaps admired “Ordinary People” but did not really enjoy the characters at all, it is perhaps not surprising that this sequel did not really work for me. I should mention, I was unaware that this story was a sequel ( of sorts ) to one of the author’s previous works. A House for Alice is a very English novel and by that I mean, Diana Evans is re-defining what Englishness is. A House for Alice” is at heart about the quest of the ageing matriarch Alice – mother of Melissa, her two older sisters Adel and Carol and estranged wife of their father Cornelius – to move back to Nigeria where, slowly, a house is being built for her.

Meanwhile, her piano-playing teenage daughter is grappling with what it means to be a young woman, “its performance, its humiliation and restriction”. The story is about the the relationship between a mother and her children as they navigate their life after their husband/father’s death in London. This book is both political and beautiful, grounded in real world events but it also reads like a poem. I’ve never highlighted so many passages in a book before and even after finishing this yesterday, I keep going back to reread some of my favorite quotes. I thought about times that this book almost read like linked short stories and, whilst some were stronger than others, I really enjoyed the deep dive into the characters lives told through pivotal moments.

Her three daughters are torn on the issue of whether she stays or goes, and while youngest sibling Melissa also grapples with the embers of her own failed relationship, the Pitt family’s foundational pillars—of trust, love, and cultural identity—begin to crack.

Whereas “Ordinary People” began with a moment of hope – and with a party attended by Michael and Melissa to celebrate the momentous election of Barack Obama, this novel begins on a note of horror – opening on the very day of the Grenfell Tower fire.It is an expansive novel that covers a wide range of themes, the opening chapters connect the death of their father in a fire on the same night as the Grenfell Fire tragedy which as a reader encapsulates an essence of the horror and pain that resonates today and demands what has changed? She was discovering, in these mounting waves and surges, that the more time passes the more profound the grief, because you are looking backwards at where the beloved stopped, while the chasm between there and where you go on, every day, is widening, so full in its emptiness. I did think the real-life Grenfell tragedy was well woven in and there is a real and justified political anger here (interesting to reflect on what has changed and hasn't since the opening scene of Ordinary People, set on the night of Obama's election). It leaves it up for debate about where this book was going with the purpose of the story getting lost in amongst all the lyrical writing and dozens of characters. Her three daughters are divided on whether she stays or goes, and tasked with realising her dream of a house in Nigeria, conflict stirs and old wounds rise to the surface.