Alice & Oliver
A Novel
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3.5 • 14 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children has created an unflinching yet deeply humane portrait of a young family’s journey through a medical crisis, laying bare a couple’s love and fears as they fight for everything that’s important to them.
New York, 1993. Alice Culvert is a caring wife, a doting new mother, a loyal friend, and a soulful artist—a fashion designer who wears a baby carrier and haute couture with equal aplomb. In their loft in Manhattan’s gritty Meatpacking District, Alice and her husband, Oliver, are raising their infant daughter, Doe, delighting in the wonders of early parenthood.
Their life together feels so vital and full of promise, which makes Alice’s sudden cancer diagnosis especially staggering. In the span of a single day, the couple’s focus narrows to the basic question of her survival. Though they do their best to remain brave, each faces enormous pressure: Oliver tries to navigate a labyrinthine healthcare system and handle their mounting medical bills; Alice tries to be hopeful as her body turns against her. Bracing themselves for the unthinkable, they must confront the new realities of their marriage, their strengths as partners and flaws as people, how to nourish love against all odds, and what it means to truly care for another person.
Inspired by the author’s life, Alice & Oliver is a deeply affecting novel written with stunning reserves of compassion, humor, and wisdom. Alice Culvert is an extraordinary character—a woman of incredible heart and spirit—who will remain in memory long after the final page.
Praise for Alice & Oliver
“This hauntingly powerful novel follows a family’s fight for survival in the face of illness. A stirring elegy to a marriage.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“A rewarding reading experience . . . a testament to the resilience of humans and our willingness to forgive.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“The novel’s power is in its two characters’ messy negotiation of their fears, errors and shifting affections. . . . Bock offers a forceful reminder that there are plenty of roiling emotions underneath that till-death-do-us-part.”—Los Angeles Times
“[A] heart-wrenching story of a young couple whose lives change when Alice gets diagnosed with cancer . . . a refreshingly unsentimental look at the vicious disease.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Alice & Oliver [has a] tough-minded commitment to truth-telling.”—The Washington Post
“Even more than the meticulous details of drugs, treatments and side effects, Bock’s tender portrayal of [his characters] in all their desolation gives [Alice & Oliver] its ring of truth. . . . I loved this novel.”—Marion Winik, Newsday
“Alice & Oliver shows that, even in a situation that’s about as terrible as it can be, there can still exist happiness, surprise, and life, that strange strong spirit that’s with us until the end.”—The Boston Globe
“The most honest, unsentimentally powerful novel about cancer that I’ve ever read.”—Michael Christie, The Globe & Mail
“Wrenchingly powerful . . . Bock chronicles the daily struggles of a young wife and mother facing her own imminent mortality. This is a soul portrait of a family in crisis, written with a fearless clarity and a deep understanding of the bonds that can hold two people together even in the darkest hour.”—Richard Price
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Cancer is a hell of a disease," Alice and her husband, Oliver, are told by a doctor early on in Alice's diagnosis in this articulate excavation of the emotional, physical, and intellectual effects of terminal illness. Through this novel, Bock (Beautiful Children) has, by and large, translated much of his own experience of tending to his late wife who, like Alice, was diagnosed with leukemia when their daughter was an infant. The result is a spellbinding book, pulsating with life and reminding the reader on every page that even when everything is as awful as it could possibly be, life itself is always a curious thing. Interspersed throughout the first two-thirds of the novel are occasional "Case Studies," detached profiles of fellow patients receiving chemo, which provide a formal, almost surreal counterbalance to the intense humanity of Alice's sickness. Though it could have been worthwhile, this device peters out before it can add much depth. But overall, this book overcomes the standard clich s to provide a beautiful, complex portrait of a family in crisis.
Customer Reviews
Not for me!
Alice and Oliver by Charles Bock is the story of Alice’s diagnosis with cancer (in 1993) and her struggle to survive. Alice and her husband, Oliver have a five-month old daughter named Doe (poor kid). Alice, Oliver, and Doe are on their way to Alice’s hometown to visit her mother for Thanksgiving when Alice becomes very sick. when Alice falls ill and is taken to Dr. Glenn. Dr. Glenn discovers that Alice has an extremely low white count and immediately has her transferred by ambulance to the hospital. The book follows Alice through the hospital, doctor’s appointments, struggle to get a nanny, understanding her insurance, billing issues, filling out the endless forms at each doctor, and her various treatments (we get details on each procedure, how the medicines affect her). We get to see how this affects Alice and Oliver (their relationship). Read Alice and Oliver to find out if Alice survives.
Alice and Oliver is written like Alice opened her mouth, started talking and never shut up. We get details on everything (it is too much) from people to rooms (it is excruciating). There is one paragraph that is particularly disgusting, and I highly suggest you avoid it (trust me you do not want to know and have this visual in your head). I really, really did not want to finish this book (I started skimming after the first hundred pages). I give Alice and Oliver 1 out of 5 stars. I just did not enjoy this novel. I read fiction as an escape and this book is more like non-fiction or reality. This type of novel should tug at the reader’s heartstrings, but instead I found myself disliking the main characters (especially the husband). The epilogue (takes us to 2010) was unusual. They only thing it really lets us know is if Alice survived. The author’s writing style did not help this book. It was disjointed and confusing. You were never sure who was talking (Alice, Oliver). I’m sorry but this novel was just not for me.
I received a complimentary copy of Alice and Oliver in exchange for an honest evaluation of the novel.