Ten Things I've Learnt About Love

May 20, 2013
Alice, the youngest of three sisters, has felt oddly disconnected from her family since the death of her mother when she was four. Leaving her father and siblings and a failed romance in London, she sets out to travel the world, wandering from place to place until her sisters summon her home because their father is dying of pancreatic cancer. Alice is adrift and unsettled, unable to communicate her love to her father before he dies, and self-conscious about her choices when compared to her sisters. Alice alternates narration with Daniel, a 60-year old homeless man whose heart troubles are causing him to revisit his past, including the affair he had with a married woman. As Alice moves forward, cleaning her deceased father’s house and making peace with her sisters, Daniel works up the courage to approach her. The relationship they build is unusual, and Butler’s elegant prose—interspersed with thoughtful lists, such as “Ten things I know about my mother” and “Ten foods that stress me out,” written by Alice and Daniel—makes this a moving debut. Agent: Andrew Kidd, Aitken Alexander Associates (U.K.).

Starred review from June 15, 2013
This soulful debut unpacks a family enigma involving a wandering daughter, a homeless father and their tenuous family ties. The title might promise another light romantic romp about a footloose young woman in her late 20s. However, English newcomer Butler has greater gravitas in mind. The top 10 lists strewn throughout point to increasingly somber subjects: a mother's early death, infidelity, a father's death from cancer, and elder sisters who are both fervent and ambivalent in their affection for their much younger sibling, protagonist Alice. Summoned home from Mongolia to the bedside of Malcolm, her dying father, Alice is also forced to revisit London, the site of a traumatic rupture with her Indian lover, Kal, whose family wants to arrange a marriage for him. After Malcolm's passing, sisters Tilly and Cee hint at what Alice has suspected since her mother's death when she was 4 years old: She is viewed as an interloper in the only family she has ever known. Meanwhile, in alternating sections, Daniel, a homeless man, scours London for the daughter he fathered during a long-ago affair but has never met. Daniel's plight stems both from the disastrous legacy of his gambler father and from an auto accident that bankrupted him. All he knows is that the woman he is searching for might have red hair, like her mother, and is named Alice. Delicately, through the accretion of telling details, the reader learns that Daniel's Alice and our heroine are one and the same, but Alice thinks her father has just died. When, while helping another destitute man reconnect with his lost child, Daniel happens across Malcolm's obituary, complete with relatives' names and the location of memorial services, he realizes his quest may soon be fulfilled if he has the courage to gamble. Improbably but convincingly, his initial diffident overtures to Alice take the form of mini art installations. Spare language and an atmosphere of foreboding will keep readers on tenterhooks. Whimsy and pathos, artfully melded.

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July 1, 2013
Butler's graceful debut explores life's heartbreaks, unexpected family bonds, and the search for home. When 29-year-old Alice learns her father is dying, she leaves Mongolia, the latest stopover on her worldly travels, for his home in London. She arrives with little time to say good-bye and is filled with regret. The situation is further strained by Alice's relationships with her two older sisters, who don't relate to her freewheeling life, and unresolved tension with a former lover. Concurrent to Alice's tale is that of Daniel, a 60-year-old homeless man. Daniel, whose health is deteriorating, is fixated on finding the daughter he's never met. As he seeks her out in the streets of London, he reconsiders his past: notably, a passionate affair nearly 30 years ago. The narrative alternates between Alice's and Daniel's perspectives as both struggle with self-forgivenessAlice feels partly responsible for the death of her mother, and Daniel fears he has failed his daughter. Although it seems destined for their paths to cross, the narrative's controlled suspense and unanswered questions make for a satisfying tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2013

Unconventional Alice, the youngest of three sisters and a frequent traveler to far-off climes, returns home just in time to say good-bye to her dying father, with whom she's never been close. Daniel, who's been homeless for three decades and enjoys building sculptures out of found materials, knows he has a daughter somewhere and is desperate to locate her before his health fails. The London-based Butler must do something wondrous with the fraught emotions of these two characters, as the book will shortly be available in 12 languages worldwide. And perhaps there's some surprise crisscrossing, too.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2013

Daniel and Alice, a father and daughter who have never met, tell their stories in alternating chapters, each beginning with a quirky list reflecting its narrator's current state of mind. Daniel lives on the street, having lost his way in life after Alice's mother ended their affair years before. Alice, who knows nothing of Daniel, has been called home to London from a sojourn in Mongolia to the bedside of the father who raised her and whose subsequent death enables Daniel to find the child he has been searching for over the years. It also sets Alice off on a reexamination of her relationship with her father and disapproving older sisters, the boyfriend she left behind, and her own vagabond ways. Daniel's tentative first steps toward a meeting with Alice involve a series of anonymous offerings made from objects found on the street, leaving her to puzzle over their significance. VERDICT The London-based Butler's poignant first novel has a distinct sense of place and sympathetic characters who have much in common. Recommended for all audiences. [See Prepub Alert, 1/6/13.]--Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.