The End Of Alice [Paperback]

A.M. Homes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 1997

Only a work of such searing, meticulously controlled brilliance could provoke such a wide range of visceral responses. Here is the incredible story of an imprisoned pedophile who is drawn into an erotically charged correspondence with a nineteen-year-old suburban coed. As the two reveal -- and revel in -- their obsessive desires, Homes creates in The End of Alice a novel that is part romance, part horror story, at once unnerving and seductive.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The narrator is Chappy, a pedophile who's been locked up in Sing Sing for 23 years. The tale alternates between Chappy's own story (both outside and inside of prison), and letters he receives from a 19-year-old girl who knows of Alice's fate and wants to start playing with 12-year-old boys. The girl's letters disturb Chappy, bringing his memories vividly to the fore. In prose that is both lyrical and horrifyingly direct, A.M. "Amy" Homes takes us into the minds of the correspondents. Chappy is bright, analytical, and reminiscent of Nabokov in the way he talks about his "Lolita." But the sex is graphic and often bizarre, and the author's tone is chilly, so it's not a book to be picked up lightly. As Daphne Merkin writes in the New York Times, it's a "splashy, not particularly likable book whose best moments are quietly observed and whose underlying themes are more serious than prurient."

From Library Journal

In this deeply disturbing novel, Homes (In a Country of Mothers, LJ 8/93) seems to be attempting to create as repulsive a protagonist as possible-a nameless pedophile serving his 23rd year at Sing Sing. Alongside his narrative is the tale of a 19-year-old college coed obsessed by a preteen boy. A large part of the novel centers on the half-real, half-imagined ties that develop between the convict and the college student as a result of her increasingly graphic letters to him. The rest is a reminiscence of his affair with a 12-year-old seductress named Alice that ends in her gruesome murder. Deliberately shocking and confrontational, Homes's purpose seems to be to force the reader into a kind of Dostoevskian identification with the blackest and most perverse elements of human nature. An optional purchase for larger libraries.
Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Edition edition (February 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684827107
• ISBN-13: 978-0684827100
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #173,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Disgusting, but impossible to forget, September 12, 2000

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End Of Alice (Paperback)

I read this 1996 novel by A.M. Homes when it was first published, but just thinking about it still gives me the shivers. It's a scary book, mostly because it forces the reader's mind to think in a sick and grotesque way.

The narrator is a 54-year old pervert who serving time in Sing Sing for the rape and murder of a 12-year old girl. He has served 23 years already when he receives a letter from a 19-year old girl who is planning to seduce a 12-year old boy. A correspondence follows which forces the pedophile's memory to reveal the most shocking and lurid details of his crimes.

This was easily one of the most disgusting books I ever read. The act of reading it made me nauseous, but yet I applaud the author for her courage to write it and do recommend it to the few brave souls who are willing to experience its horrific roller coaster ride.

But be forewarned: the disgust and revulsion last long after the book is finished, and its essence is impossible to forget.

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully disturbing, February 28, 2000

By 

David J. Loftus (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End Of Alice (Paperback)

I am tempted to call this a beautiful book in the same way that I feel the movie of "The Loved One," a very black-humored farce about funerals and death, is beautiful: It masterfully accomplishes what it sets out to do.

In rich, imaginative prose, Homes tells a compelling tale with all the fascination of a fatal car wreck and a cobra preparing to strike. If you found Nabokov's _Lolita_ disturbing, if you couldn't stomach Ellis's skillful but satirical and cold _American Psycho_, stay away from this book. It has both the warmth and tenderness of the former, and the in-your-face graphicness of the latter (probably even more in-your-face because of the warmth and tenderness). People have referred to the pedophilia, masturbation, and murder; don't forget homosexual prison sex and rape ... and how do you feel about saving scabs in a drawer for chewing and sucking on later?

Some of the other Amazon reviews here have been utterly hilarious: Homes should include them in splash pages of subsequent editions. There are the usual encomia and expressions of disgust, but "Billy Graham could just as well have written this"? uhum37 also complains that "every character remains profoundly moral" -- another judgment I cannot understand for the life of me, but I will nevertheless respond that the characters are telling their own stories (the 19-year-old's is additionally filtered through the sensibility of the narrator, for the most part -- and of course they are apt to regard themselves as moral.

Reviewers also ask the wrong questions. "Does this story need to be told?" one reader queried on 6/4/97. Of course not. No story "needs" to be told, whether it's Alice In Wonderland or Waiting for Godot. The real question is, does a story compel attention, does it make you think and feel (not necessarily think and feel lovely thoughts!), and does it play fair and maintain a certain plausibility even given its fantastic premises? "sevitt" in Israel wonders whether the narrator's reported flashbacks were true. It doesn't make any difference! He is telling the stories; they present either what he wants to think about himself or what he wants the listener to believe (and the listener is NOT the person who reads the book _The End of Alice_, remember, but a 19-year-old female correspondent who wants to seduce 12-year-old boys).

This is an amazing book. I look forward to reading Homes's other work, past and future.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unlike Anything I've Ever Read, October 24, 2000

By 

C. Burgess "chico_bkny" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End Of Alice (Paperback)

Before I talk about the subject matter, and why I believe this is an important and courageous book, let me comment on the writing. I found Homes' dreamlike, almost surreal style difficult to follow at first. Some of the diction and sentence structures seemed odd to me, and I was forced to slow down and read carefully to fully understand what was being said. After a while, I grew to love this style. It's strangely engaging, much like to book itself, and it lets you absorb the power of the words you are reading rather than speed through them.

As for the story itself, I was blown away. Homes really gets into the heads of the main characters and accurately (I think) captures the thoughts, emotions and motivations of, in turn, a 19-year old girl bursting with sexuality, a 12-year old boy on the cusp of discovering his own sexuality and a 60-something sex offender struggling with his inner demons. I found all three portrayals to be convincing. And what a story! At various times in the book, I was repelled, confused, aroused, disgusted or amazed, but I was never, ever bored. Some of those scenes will stay with me for many years, I'm sure. It's a challanging and controversal book, to be sure, but it reveals some truths about sexual power and attraction better than any non-fiction book could.