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About Alice | 
 enlarge | Author: Calvin Trillin
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 58481
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 96
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.7
ISBN: 1400066158
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9781400066155
ASIN: 1400066158
Publication Date: December 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In Calvin Trillin’s antic tales of family life, she was portrayed as the wife who had “a weird predilection for limiting our family to three meals a day” and the mother who thought that if you didn’t go to every performance of your child’s school play, “the county would come and take the child.” Now, five years after her death, her husband offers this loving portrait of Alice Trillin off the page–his loving portrait of Alice Trillin off the page–an educator who was equally at home teaching at a university or a drug treatment center, a gifted writer, a stunningly beautiful and thoroughly engaged woman who, in the words of a friend, “managed to navigate the tricky waters between living a life you could be proud of and still delighting in the many things there are to take pleasure in.”
Though it deals with devastating loss, About Alice is also a love story, chronicling a romance that began at a Manhattan party when Calvin Trillin desperately tried to impress a young woman who “seemed to glow.”
“You have never again been as funny as you were that night,” Alice would say, twenty or thirty years later.
“You mean I peaked in December of 1963?”
“I’m afraid so.”
But he never quit trying to impress her. In his writing, she was sometimes his subject and always his muse. The dedication of the first book he published after her death read, “I wrote this for Alice. Actually, I wrote everything for Alice.”
In that spirit, Calvin Trillin has, with About Alice, created a gift to the wife he adored and to his readers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 We should all be this loved October 6, 2008
This is one of the sweetest books I have ever read. It is the book I give to friends and family for whatever reason... a recuperation , a "thank you," "love you," or simply, " you have to read this book!" Calvin Trillin shares Alice with us with humor and love and we are all better for it.
A famous couple's relationship tenderly depicted August 14, 2008
A touching in memorium to the author's wife, who recently died of lung cancer. The couple's relationship is tenderly depicted, but I found myself not liking Alice all that much. She is definitely a complex person, but she also seems a bit superficial and showy at times. i suspect this is my misinterpretation based on a few episodes described by Trillon. I really enjoyed Trillin's writing and his sensitive treatment of his relationship with his wife, though.
Powerful Stories August 8, 2008
About Alice contains some very powerful stories about the transforming power of human love. The story about the handicapped girl at the end of chapter VII (p.65-66) is especially moving.
She walked (and acted) in Beauty June 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's all been said before, but never so eloquently. A true loss. An amazing spirit.
Love Celebrated with Memories June 21, 2008
This is a slim book and a quick read but don't let the small size fool you; it packs a punch. Readers of Trillin's other works may recognize a version (or two) of Alice in this book. He never nails down Alice's essence which may be a disappointment for anyone who picks up the book with the hope that Alice's true personality would be revealed. This is a love letter about Alice and their marriage.
Love can be the culmination of stories told (some details are naturally remembered differently than your partner) and shared experiences. Trillin visits many different stories and memories (his and others') about Alice and their life together. There is no doubt he loved her and was inspired by her to be a better writer and a better person.
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