A new book due out in January continues to garner rave reviews form the critics, and I can't wait to read it.

The novel by Melony Benjamin--part fiction but mostly fact--relates the heartbreaking real-life story of Alice Liddell, the inspiration of Lewis Carroll's beloved children's classic, Alice In Wonderland.

The novel hints at an inappropriate relationship between Carroll and Alice; in fact, one reviewer goes so far as to call Alice the Victorian Lolita:

"A haunting evocation of a long-ago Lolita, richly imagined and deeply felt, that lingers in memory long after the last page is turned."
   —Stephanie Barron

Another critic is gentler, stating:

"A smashing tale—mostly true—of the overlap of childhood and womanhood, a compelling mystery, an exposé of Victorian mores, an exploration of love that came too soon and too late, an explosive trail of emotions and human foibles, a heartbreak—written with compassion and grace: I loved it!"
   —Susan Vreeland

In this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole-and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.
Alice Liddell Hargreaves's life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she's experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only "Alice."
That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice—he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice's childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.
For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.
A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.

Already elected as a January, 2010 Indie Next Pick and Elle Magazine Readers' Prize Selection for January ,2010, I'm reserving my copy at the library TODAY.  This book is going to be a smash!

posted on Dec 13, 2009 9:05 AM ()

Comment on this article   

---

1,242 articles found   [ Previous Article ]  [ Next Article ]  [ First ]  [ Last ]