Alice Fantastic
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An “entertaining” novel about a family of three women “navigating relationships, a half-dozen lovers and innumerable dogs” (Publishers Weekly).
Alice Hunter is a thirty-six-year-old professional gambler living in Queens, New York. She is modestly successful as a horseplayer and enjoys her work. Though she is avidly pursued by her lover, Clayton, whom she refers to as The Big Oaf, Alice’s real closest companion is a small spotted dog, and Alice likes it that way.
When Clayton’s overzealousness leads Alice to ask one of her racetrack cronies to intimidate him into leaving her, a few things go wrong—and Alice turns to her half-sister Eloise, a toy maker whose own lover has just been killed in a freak accident. Despite their gruffness with each other, there is fierce love among Alice, Eloise, and their unconventional mother, Kimberly—but it will take the accidental discovery of an awful secret to truly bring three eccentric women, seventeen dogs, and assorted lovers together.
“The storytelling has vitality and a spirit of rebellion.” —The New York Times
“There is about Maggie Estep’s work a directness, a clear determination—a drive to cut through, to break through, to claw through—that is impressive.” —A. M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Estep's entertaining fifth novel features three women half-sisters Alice and Eloise and their ex-junkie mother, Kimberly navigating relationships, a half-dozen lovers and innumerable dogs. Alice, the elder sister, is a professional gambler and prefers to keep an emotional distance from her lovers. Things go wrong, however, when she attempts to shake off her latest boyfriend, Clayton; to her dismay, she finds she cares for "the big oaf." Meanwhile, Eloise, whose boyfriend recently died, gets involved with the glamorous actress Ava Larkin, whom Kimberly met while walking some of the 17 rescued dogs she shelters. After Alice discovers a secret that Kimberly has been harboring, she and her sister are confronted with the need to transform their apparently coldhearted ways. Unfortunately, as the novel progresses, it loses the witty energy of its zinger first chapter, and, as compared to Estep's adventuresome characters, the conventional nature of Kimberly's secret disappoints. Nevertheless, Estep (Hex) captures the wily spirit of a woman more inclined to give her heart to a dog than to another person.
