After Alice

A Novel

By: Gregory Maguire

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

From the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Wicked comes a magical new twist on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lewis’s Carroll’s beloved classic.

When Alice toppled down the rabbit-hole 150 years ago, she found a Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But what of that world? How did 1860s Oxford react to Alice’s disappearance?

In this brilliant work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings—and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll’s enduring tale. Ada, a friend of Alice’s mentioned briefly in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late—and tumbles down the rabbit-hole herself.

Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Either way, everything that happens next is “After Alice.”

Must be taken slowly

This is not really a story as much as it is sophisticated parade of witticisms for grown ups, or grown downs. Even the children speak above my head, or at least above my neck. In recasting the tale, rather than mock reverence to the silliness of adults, we get reverent mocking of mr. C. Darwin by some silly adults. The best part of the whole thing is the narrator, except her attempt at Sam I Am.

It’s a wonderful experience

Gregory Maguire produces an imaginative and well written narrative exploring the other side of Alice in wonderland. The phraseology and vocabulary are delightful; the narration was above the top.

Interesting

I found it very interesting and intriguing to see a friend experience what the original character went Through.
And that they is a connection to the other world to ours if another child happen to fall right into the same hole.

voices are grating

The reader has a very pleasant voice and she is skilled at doing a wide variety of voices. However, she chose to give really annoying voices to a number of characters with fairly large speaking roles, thus making it very hard to listen to.

Really Enjoyable

Would you consider the audio edition of After Alice to be better than the print version?

Katherine's narration was a perfect match

Any additional comments?

If you loved Alice Through the Looking Glass or Alice in Wonderland then you should love this . . .