The Alice Stories (Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction)

"Kercheval focuses on the touchstone events of protagonist Alice's life in this uneven collection of linked stories, but maintains throughout an emotional distance that is vaguely unsatisfying. The tales are marked heavily by death: Alice's alcoholic mother dies in the introductory 'Alice in Dairyland'; in 'Honors,' Alice and her brother Mark (whose partner has recently died of AIDS complications) bury the father who deserted them years ago; and Alice goes on to have a miscarriage and watch as two loved ones get cancer diagnoses. The book's high body count starts to feel like a crutch to lend meaning to the stories, while actual character development often relies on cliché; the central relationship, Alice's marriage to Anders, remains something of an enigma, and other characters are too perfect. The depictions of these events fail to take on the 'universal' quality necessary to make them resonate." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Wisconsin is not where Alice, a girl raised in Florida, meant to end up. But when she falls in love with Anders Dahl, a descendant of Norwegian farmers born for generations in the same stone farmhouse, she realizes that to love Anders is to settle into a life in Wisconsin in the small house they buy before their daughter, Maude, is born. Together, Alice and Anders move forward into a life of family, friends, and the occasional troubled student until they face their biggest challenge. Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, Jesse Lee Kercheval’s The Alice Stories tells the tale of a family: the pain of loss and the importance of the love of friends in the midst of turmoil. As timely as the news yet informed by rich humor and a deep understanding of human character, the interlinked Alice Stories form a luminous tale of family life.