About Alice

Calvin Trillin has been a staff writer at the New Yorker for many years. I read a vivid and touching essay a while back there about his late wife Alice who died in 2001. This book is an expanision of the New Yorker essay and it's a pure delight to read. A reader who sent Trilliin a note of condolence after Alice's death describes her measuring stick for judging her boyfriend: "Will he love me as much as Calvin loves Alice?" And Trillin's affection for Alice shows through on every page.

This and other personal memoir books that so perfectly (it seems) capture a spouse or child through writing make me want to be a better writer so I can preserve the fleeting nature of what my children are like now.