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

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Her second novel, The Wonder, was also published to critical acclaim, described by The Times as ‘the most dazzling depiction of the world of dance since Ballet Shoes‘. A fire in a high-rise residential apartment in West London on the same night left several residents homeless and many dead. Circling around the wife of the late Cornelius Pitt, we follow her journey to escape her current life to live out her remaining days in Nigeria. through the delicacy of her [Evans's] prose, the deftness of her dialogue and the clarity of her observations, she manages to create a novel that measures up to life.

The three sisters have a close yet strained relationship as they try to manage their own complicated lives as well as deciding how to help their mother, Alice, enter the next phase of her life. I really appreciated seeing an in-depth portrait of a family that is simultaneously unraveling at the seams and continually there for each other; they are constantly at each other’s throats but they’re never far from each other. Her second novel, The Wonder, was also published to critical acclaim, described by The Times as 'the most dazzling depiction of the world of dance since Ballet Shoes'. 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. 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.This is a book about love, life, interconnectedness, marriage, childhood and so many more relationships. This disaster is juxtaposed against a more personal one: The elderly patriarch of the Pitt family, Cornelius, dies alone at home after a fire breaks out in his house. I have so much rage and frustration inside me because of it, and it takes so much energy, to be dodging all the time, downplaying, pretending it’s fine.

Through their victories and defeats, Evans skillfully portrays the disparities that exist in England, where the class system and racism continue to hinder progress. By turning tragedy into something beautiful in the first chapter, I knew this was a novel I wouldn’t be able to put down easily. There are references to current affairs too – the Windrush scandal, Harry and Meghan’s wedding, the “doomful cloud of Boris Johnson”. I liked the political dilemmas the characters faced as Blacks in London – as immigrants, as parents of Black boys, as caregivers to a cantankerous and abusive father, as parents to children with mental health and criminal justice issues, etc. Anyway, though, I generally liked this book and think if you’re a fan of Zadie Smith’s works you’ll probably enjoy it since it is extremely character-focused.

Characters from that earlier novel make appearances here, but there is no need to have read that previous title to enjoy this new one.

Set against the shadows of a city and a country in turmoil, Diana Evans's ordinary people confront fundamental questions. The first part ends on what, for those unfamiliar with Diana Evans and her literary trait of always adding a slightly supernatural/ghost like element to all her novels – something which stems from the tragic loss of her own twin sister ( https://www. Past that, there was too much going on but also nothing really happening for a lot of this, and then there was a random sketch put in that I still can’t make sense of. Her essays and journalism appear in among others Time Magazine, Vogue, The Independent, The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s Bazaar. At once associative, poetic – florid on occasion – but girded by inquisitive precision, it renders almost hypnotic her constant toggling between the prosaic and the metaphysical.I also found Alice’s story heartbreaking as I read about her hopes of a new life in London after moving to Nigeria, only for that to be crushed in a loveless relationship. Perhaps her death, as well as her life, would be a disagreement of place, and once you have left you can never really go back. It was an intriguing aspect for sure but considering the disaster itself is not even 10 years old yet, with investigations still very much ongoing and people still very much struggling because of it, I can't help but wonder if it was a bit too early to feature it in a work of fiction. There were many times when I had to set the book down and reflect on a passage that I had just read.

Evans glimpses something heroic in her middle-aged characters as they summon the wherewithal to square fading dreams with reality, but she imbues seventysomething Alice with fierce determination. Yet he still wonders if he will ever know anyone the way he knew Melissa, and she in turn is nostalgic for their once safe haven.Diana Evans is fast proving herself a novelist to rank alongside Anne Tyler, so adept is she at parsing life's longings and upheavals.