The End Of Alice
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- USD 13.99
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- USD 13.99
Publisher Description
"Superlative...undeniably shocking...superbly achieved by a writer who is a true artist." —Vogue
From the prizewinning author of May We Be Forgiven, a dark and twisting novel following the correspondence between a jailed pedophile and a nineteen-year-old woman asking for his help with her own unthinkable obsessions—a controversial yet unnervingly compelling story.
Only a work of such searing, meticulously controlled brilliance could provoke such a wide range of visceral responses. A dark, provocative, but utterly fascinating story, The End of Alice dives deep into the darkest corners of the human psyche. Following the correspondence between a seasoned pedophile imprisoned for horrific crimes and a nineteen-year-old following her own forbidden desires, the narrative blurs the line between confessor and accomplice. Through the voice of the jailed pedophile, the narrative weaves between his current state in prison, his memories of the horrifying acts he committed, and his letters of advice to the young woman with an obsessive appetite for prepubescent boys.
With Homes' sharp prose and fearless exploration of morality, this novel is an utterly captivating unraveling of chilling layers of manipulation, obsession, and secrets. Acclaimed for its unflinching honesty and controversial themes, The End of Alice challenges all to confront the uncomfortable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like recent novels by Susannah Moore and Joyce Carol Oates, Homes's latest (after her A Country of Mothers) is a literary serial-killer novel, by turns sensational and clever, smutty and powerful. It is told as a prison confession, by a notorious but unnamed pedophile in his 23rd year at Sing Sing who has begun to receive letters from a depressed, rebellious (and also unnamed) 19-year-old. Trapped at home in Scarsdale for the summer, boxed in by her callous suburban parents, she acts out the turmoil and anomie of nascent adulthood by embarking on a salacious affair with a 12-year-old male neighbor. Her voice emerges in short, quizzical letters to the narrator. But, as refracted through his self-consciously mannered, feverish and puerile imagination, it's impossible to tell where she ends and he begins: her precocious erotic acrobatics resemble his rough jailhouse sex; her raunchy paeans to pubescent flesh echo his carnal obsessions. Her letters also prompt the narrator to remember his own abuse by his mother and his gruesome murder of Alice Sommerfield, a 12-year-old who, he claims, seduced him. With its allusions to Lolita and Lewis Carroll, this is a lurid but weirdly arch page-turner that may prove too unsavory for all but the most jaded readers. Author tour.
