After Alice - Gregory Maguire

Summary: "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, underpinningsand 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 lateand 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."


Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* When Alice first visited Wonderland over a century ago, Lewis Carroll introduced young readers to a world of imaginative characters and places such as had never been seen before. Now Maguire takes us on the journey again, this time in the company of Ada, who has fallen down the legendary rabbit hole after her friend. While Ada goes in search of Alice, always a few steps behind in the same vibrantly colorful land, Alice's sister, Lydia, remains in the ordinary world of Victorian England, searching the streets of Oxford for the missing girls, while her father visits with Charles Darwin to discuss the future of faith. Ada's adventure underground gives readers a new perspective on the oddities to be found there, but it's the search through Oxford that really turns this story on its head. Through Lydia and other new characters, Maguire firmly sets Wonderland in time and place and weaves an intricate web of symbolism and allegory, asking readers to consider issues of humanity that are as timeless as the original tale itself. The novel is full of the magic, wonder, and fresh twists that his fans have come to expect, and Maguire- and Wonderland-lovers alike will enjoy this fantastic return. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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