Description

‘Heart and humour in abundance… exquisite’ The Times

After fifty years in London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. Her children are divided on whether she stays or goes, and in the wake of their father’s death, the imagined stability of the family begins to fray.

Meanwhile youngest daughter Melissa has never let go of a love she lost, and Michael in return, now married to Nicole, is haunted by the failed perfection of the past. As Alice’s final decision draws closer, all that is hidden between them rises to the surface . . .

Set against the shadows of a city and a country in turmoil, Diana Evans’s ordinary people confront fundamental questions. How should we raise our children? How to do right by our parents? And how, in the midst of everything, can we satisfy ourselves?

‘A gorgeous novel from one of our most outstanding writers’ Bernardine Evaristo
‘Diana Evans is fast proving herself a novelist to rank alongside Anne Tyler’ Daily Mail
‘A warm but devastating narrative… Like any Evans novel, it is unputdownable’ Harper’s Bazaar
A New York Times *100 Notable Books of 2023*
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Selected in Best Reads of 2023 by The Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, New Statesman and Good Housekeeping
A Waterstones Book of the Year
The Bookseller Editor’s Choice
The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Starred Kirkus Review
Guardian Book of the Day

Publisher Review

A gorgeous novel from one of our most outstanding writers to be savoured for its beautiful language and profound insights into families, relationships and life in contemporary Britain * Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other * A House For Alice is a sharp appraisal of loss. Evans writes deftly about the shifting intimacies between family * Raven Leilani, author of Luster * A wise, tender novel about family and love that explores the tension between duty and desire and the question of what 'home' really means * Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane and Love Marriage * At every point, whether sad or funny, A House for Alice is compassionate and sharp * Telegraph * A warm but devastating narrative, dealing with the fallout of the Grenfell tragedy... Like any Evans novel, it is unputdownable * Harper's Bazaar, *Books to Look Out For 2023* * 'Diana Evans's writing is so singular, so arresting, characterful, and so beautiful . . . Evans is always, always on the finest of forms' * Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie and People Person * I adored it. Her writing is exquisite: every sentence a jewel; every paragraph containing some insight that makes you draw breath with its rightness * Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail and Magpie * Evans is a profoundly important chronicler of our times. Her velveteen prose is utterly precise, so detailed and artful . . . A writer at the top of her game * Leone Ross * Superb. A deeply enriching and profound novel. Diana Evans is one of our greatest writers. We're so lucky to have her * Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch * 'A poignant and elegant unfurling of the intricacies of family life - sensitively observed and beautifully written' * Nicola Rollock, author of The Racial Code * An orchestral, richly textured portrait of interconnected middle-class Black lives in contemporary London . . . Witty, poignant and emotionally acute * The Bookseller *