book review: Alice by Judith Herman
Translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo The backstory: Alice was shortlisted for the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize . The basics: Told in five sections, Alice offers five glimpses of its titular character. In each section, there is also a death. My thoughts: Given the short length of this novel (160 pages), I intended to read it in a single setting. After I finished its first section, however, I wanted time to ponder. I ended up spreading out this slim volume over five days: one for each of its sections. Some describe this book as linked stories, and while I suppose that is technically true, it read like a character-driven novel. Alice is the focus of each section, even though the sections are named for the person who dies. As the theme of death becomes more clear (the first character was on death's door as the novel began, while the second character was unexpectedly ill), the argument that Alice is a novel becomes stronger. Taken individually, th...