About Alice

ABOUT ALICE is Calvin Trillin's homage to his late wife, Alice. Read by the author with tenderness and affection, the memoir is a celebration of the life the Trillins shared. Thankfully, Trillin reads the book because it would be difficult to conceive of anyone else's voice containing a more genuine mix of love and longing. Trillin clearly worshiped his wife, and his devotion echoes in every syllable of every word. As a reader and critic of Trillin's works, Alice offered him affirmation. In ABOUT ALICE, Trillin now seems to want spiritual rather than earthly approval for his work. Although Alice may be gone, Trillin's short but thoroughly satisfying tribute provides us with a glimpse of this charming and intelligent woman. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

October 30, 2006
Trillin (A Heckuva Job: More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme
), a staff writer with the New Yorker
since 1963, has often written about the members of his family, notably his wife, Alice, whom he married in 1965. A graduate of Wellesley and Yale, she was a writer and educator who survived a 1976 battle with lung cancer. In 1981, she founded a TV production company, Learning Designs, producing PBS's Behind the Scenes
to teach children creative thinking; her book Dear Bruno
(1996) was intended to reassure children who had cancer. A weakened heart due to radiation treatments led to her death on September 11, 2001, at age 63. Avoiding expressions of grief, Trillin unveils a straightforward, honest portrait of their marriage and family life in this slim volume, opening with the suggestion that he had previously mischaracterized Alice when he wrote her into "stories that were essentially sitcoms." Looking back on their first encounter, he then focuses on her humor, her beauty, her "child's sense of wonderment," her relationship with her daughters and her concern for others. Trillin's 12-page "Alice, Off the Page" was published earlier this year in the New Yorker
, and his expansion of his original essay into this touching tribute is certain to stir emotions.

Starred review from July 15, 2007
September 11, 2001, was a day of devastation for Trillin, but while he was sharing the grief of the nation over the World Trade Center attacks, he was privately mourning the passing of the most important person in his life. After a long battle with lung cancer, his wife, Alice, died during the early afternoon of 9/11, when the eyes of everyone else were focused on an unspeakable horror. She left him with a lifetime of memories about a highly successful marriage that he often chronicled in his wittyNew Yorker articles and that afforded him the opportunity to share this remarkable woman with his readers. To use a tired literary cliché, Alice was his muse, his chance to see the world through an intelligent, creative, and often unpredictable partner. As is the case with many successful marriages, Alice kept her husband grounded for the most part but realized that he needed to be free in order to write the books and articles that touched the lives of so many. In fact, Trillin states that he is still receiving love and encouragement from Alice, and that, dear listeners, is the sign of a happy marriage. Read by Trillin and brief though it may be, this is one of the strongest and most touching love letters you will ever have the privilege to hear. Highly recommended.-Joseph L. Carlson, Allan Hancock Coll., Lompoc, CA

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.