Alice Isn't Dead

August 20, 2018
Based on the podcast of the same name, Fink’s thrilling first solo novel follows a woman thrown into the middle of a secret war that takes place in the vast, empty stretches of America. Keisha Taylor believed her wife, Alice, dead after she disappeared without a trace. Then, six months after the funeral, Keisha sees Alice in the background of a news report. Thus begins her search, crisscrossing America after getting a job as a long-distance trucker, following up leads culled from Alice’s notes and papers. Along the way, she’s threatened by monsters called Thistle Men and discovers a vast conspiracy that protects them as they prey upon people along the highways. Creator of the popular Welcome to Nightvale podcast, Fink (It Devours! with Jeffrey Cranor) fills his world with fully realized characters, from Keisha, who uses her grief and anxiety to give herself strength, to Sylvia, the runaway teenager who fights against the Thistle Men who killed her mom. Fans of eerie suspense will find much to like. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House.

Even if you've never listened to the podcast on which this gripping production is based, fear not: Fink's audiobook is so effectively scary that it's easy to binge-listen to on its own. Throughout, Jasika Nicole's narration is effectively subtle. Keisha is searching for her wife, Alice, who is presumed dead. Her search requires scouring a landscape of dark highways, empty parking lots, dusty motel rooms, and untrustworthy law enforcement. Along her journey, she encounters a murderous entity that seems to know where she is at every turn. Fans of horror will appreciate the simplicity of the story's premise and the skill with which the suspense builds. Nicole's performance is tense, even chilling when appropriate--but with an underlying suggestion of hope. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 15, 2018
A female big-rig driver crisscrosses America searching for signs of the wife everyone else thinks is dead.This spooky third novel by Welcome to Night Vale creator Fink (It Devours!, 2017, etc.) is similarly based on an original podcast and offers a more threatening but equally personal take on the horror genre. Switching from the podcast's intimate first-person narration, delivered with powerful emotion by actress Jasika Nicole, allows Fink to stretch out into the more remote corners of his mythos while delivering the same scary beats. The main character is Keisha Taylor, whose wife, Alice, disappeared while working for the mysterious Bay and Creek trucking company: "No cause of death. No body. No certainty. There was a disappearance, and after a long and increasingly hopeless search, the presumption of death." Now Keisha has taken a job with the company as a long-haul driver, which thrusts her firmly into the eerie mythology at work here. Keisha is a fascinating character partially because one of her defining characteristics is chronic anxiety, and it's a potent imperfection for a character who battles literal monsters on a regular basis. Along the way, Fink unveils the strange universe that swallowed Alice whole, revealing an underground war between two secret societies, time-bending oracles, and other Lovecraft-ian horrors. He also gives Keisha a charismatic ally in Sylvia Parker, a teen on the run who becomes her "anxiety bro," and a bloodcurdling enemy in the macabre, twisted police officer who stalks her across the span of the country. But the book also tempers its terrors with everyday humanity, portraying the mundane joys of love, the rich fabric of the American countryside, and surreal "Why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes that are a hallmark of the podcast. By the time Keisha learns Alice's fate, readers will realize that this marvelous character is more than the sum of her faceless anxiety or her very real fears.A terrifying new storytelling experience that affirms, even in our darkest moments, that love conquers all.

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August 1, 2018
Fink (Welcome to Night Vale?, 2015, with Jeffrey Cranor) opens his newest book with a confession: he suffers from anxiety. While his anxiety is often crippling, Fink has channeled that fear into writing some of the most engrossing supernatural stories out there today. Readers who cope with a similar disposition are sure to identify with the book's two main characters, Alice and Keisha, who navigate their own anxieties in an exceptionally terrifying atmosphere. Alice has been missing for so long that her wife, Keisha, is forced to assume she is dead. Keisha tries to move on, until she recognizes Alice in the background of a TV-news segment. Desperate for answers, Keisha becomes a truck driver for the same company Alice was working for when she disappeared and travels across the country in pursuit of her wife. But Keisha soon discovers a dangerous world of roadside bogeymen, leaving her with more questions than answers. The travelers in all of us are sure to enjoy this road trip of a book, even if it means getting lost along the way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)