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

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Set against the shadows of a city and a country in turmoil, Diana Evans's ordinary people confront fundamental questions. Evans masterfully weaves these themes into the fabric of the narrative, creating a thought-provoking and emotionally charged reading experience.

Over the ensuing months the family contends with a range of disputes stemming from and running alongside this development. This novel features some of the same characters from the author's earlier novel, Ordinary People, which is about the breakdown of Melissa and Michael's relationship and their friendship with Damian and Stephanie. I got bored at about 4 hours and could no longer remember the various characters and how they related to the fire and the death of one person. After fifty years in the wilderness of London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. A House for Alice touches on so many themes: a dysfunctional family and family trauma, the challenges of marriage and its failure, racism, the refugee experience, the love for a child, failing a child, failing oneself, the view from old age.

While I did like the writing and the character development, I was somewhat disappointed with the way the story flowed. This is a novel with important things to say about the world today, particularly for Black men, It's also a highly enjoyable read with just as much insight into human relationships as Ordinary People and I recommend it. 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. In a standalone title they’d feel like a plot strand too many, and even in a follow-up they stretch the focus overly. Broad in range, vivid in detail, alight often with eloquent language, Evans’ fourth novel, set among a Black community in London, takes time to reveal itself.

I loved Diana Evans' use of language in A House for Alice, her use of adjectives to communicate the complicated nature of feelings: "he’d thought it pretentious, earnest, western, sanctimonious, selfish, self-important, impractical, pseudo-buddhist and yogic, but now he could see her logic" (p.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 think without that knowledge the book can be difficult to follow as characters are introduced with at best incomplete back stories otherwise – as can be seen from a number of other reviews. could seem an odd note, as we suddenly join Cornelius seemingly being turned away from heaven (Cornelius’s behaviour on earth, particularly towards his daughters, and the long term impact of it on their lives and relationships is a key dynamic to the novel’s later development). This is a novel that encourages us to stand in life’s burning doorways, and to think long before we walk away or walk through.