{"product_id":"a-house-for-alice-9780593686553","title":"A House for Alice","description":"\u003cb\u003eA\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eNOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e- Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction​ - A sweeping and beautifully rendered exploration of home and yearning, following the fracturing of a family upon the demise of its patriarch \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Each character here is richly and deeply drawn...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.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e--New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the early hours of June 14, 2017, the world watches as flames leap up the sides of a residential high-rise in West London, consuming Grenfell Tower and many of the lives within it. Across town, an earlier spark has caught fire. A cigarette left burning in an ashtray. A table strewn with post-it reminders and old newspapers. And one Cornelius Winston Pitt--estranged husband, complicated dad, and Pitt family patriarch--takes his final breaths alone. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese twin tragedies open Diana Evans's \u003ci\u003eA House for Alice\u003c\/i\u003e, an aching portrait of a family of women shaken by loss and searching for closure. At the novel's center is Alice herself, the Pitt matriarch who, after fifty years in England, now longs to live out her final years in her homeland of Nigeria. Her three daughters are torn on the issue of whether she stays or goes, and while youngest sibling Melissa also grapples with the embers of her own failed relationship, the Pitt family's foundational pillars--of trust, love, and cultural identity--begin to crack. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIntimately drawn and set against a fraught political backdrop, yet equally full of hope, humor, and humanity, \u003ci\u003eA House for Alice\u003c\/i\u003e traces the scars of grief and betrayal across generations and uncovers the secrets we keep from those closest to us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDIANA EVANS\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the novels \u003ci\u003e26a\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Wonder\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eOrdinary People\u003c\/i\u003e. She has received nominations for the Whitbread First Novel, the Guardian First Book and the Commonwealth Best First Book awards and was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers. \u003ci\u003eOrdinary People\u003c\/i\u003e won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and also received a nomination for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction. Her journalism appears in among others \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, the \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in London.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50899422183698,"sku":"9780593686553","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7522cc1e-a0e4-49f7-8cea-16cc9de9bc74.jpg?v=1744279458","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-house-for-alice-9780593686553","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}