D J Taylor

ask-alice

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Literary Life in Britain Since 1918

The Prose Factory

The Windsor Faction

A Victorian Mystery

Derby Day

Thackeray

The Decline of Amateurism in Sport

On The Corinthian Spirit

Nothing, Doting, Blindness

The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940

Bright Young People

Kept

The Life

Orwell

Ask Alice

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

A gripping page-turner filled with surprises, shocks and deep psychological insight... Intelligent, absorbing and most enjoyable

Utterly gripping reading... You are in for a treat

DJ Taylor creates characters who have dynamic spirit and capture the imagination, while the story has the tension of a thriller, the sensitivity of a romance and the wit of an idiosyncratic adventure

Ambitious and immensely accomplished ... above all a meditation on selfhood and memory

A highly accomplished novel. It is engrossingly plotted, and its depiction of the vibrant decade leading to the 1929 Crash offers an interesting parallel to our own times

Intelligent, absorbing and most enjoyable

Excellent ... the impenetrable, imperturbable Alice compels

Carefully constructed sets and a convincing commentary on social change

mesmerising novel paints pictures of many different worlds in the early 20th century...busting with detail... captivating

When on song, which he often is here, Taylor is a felicitous, intelligent writer. He sets a scene with admirable clarity, peoples it with memorable characters, and offers a plot that will keep most readers hooked and satisfied for nigh on 350 pages. These days this is rarer than you might think

D  J Taylor is remarkably under-appreciated as a novelist.

This special piece of period realism is very far indeed from being either silly or dull.

Taylor is excellent on the 'incidentals' - arresting tableaux abound - and the impenetrable, imperturbable Alice compels.

A plot of Victorian complexity handled with great skill

Glamorous Alice Keach is one of 1930s London's foremost hostesses. Despite humble American origins, she has secured her place in high society through marriage to one of England's wealthiest bachelors. 
 
But Alice has a secret. Its roots run years back, and miles away, to the dust-blasted prairies of Kansas. It corncerns a lost little boy left under the haphazard guidance of an eccentric uncle. Now, a visit from America looks set to blow apart Alice's glittering pre-eminence forever.

A wonderful novel of concealment and subterfuge, sweeping from Kansas to London, from 1904 to 1936, by the author of Kept - about a woman's rise and fall, the chances she takes and the secret which will undo her.

D.J. Taylor was born in Norwich in 1960. He is a novelist, critic and acclaimed biographer, whose biography of Thackeray was a critically-acclaimed success and whose Orwell: The Life won the Whitbread Biography prize in 2003. His most recent books are Kept: A Victorian Mystery (a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year) and Derby Day: A Victorian Mystery. He is also the author of Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940, and the novel At the Chime of a City Clock.

Ask Alice

Format:

Buy the book from:

A gripping page-turner filled with surprises, shocks and deep psychological insight... Intelligent, absorbing and most enjoyable

Utterly gripping reading... You are in for a treat

DJ Taylor creates characters who have dynamic spirit and capture the imagination, while the story has the tension of a thriller, the sensitivity of a romance and the wit of an idiosyncratic adventure

Ambitious and immensely accomplished ... above all a meditation on selfhood and memory

A highly accomplished novel. It is engrossingly plotted, and its depiction of the vibrant decade leading to the 1929 Crash offers an interesting parallel to our own times

Intelligent, absorbing and most enjoyable

Excellent ... the impenetrable, imperturbable Alice compels

Carefully constructed sets and a convincing commentary on social change

mesmerising novel paints pictures of many different worlds in the early 20th century...busting with detail... captivating

When on song, which he often is here, Taylor is a felicitous, intelligent writer. He sets a scene with admirable clarity, peoples it with memorable characters, and offers a plot that will keep most readers hooked and satisfied for nigh on 350 pages. These days this is rarer than you might think

About D J Taylor

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter