The World After Alice - by Lauren Aliza Green (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"The World After Alice is a lovely debut novel that glimmers with fine writing and notes of human insight. There's a quiet beauty to Lauren Aliza Green's work, and I am now a fan."
--Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

"A page-turner of a family drama. The World After Alice is at turns brutally honest, funny, and deeply empathic." --Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake

Named One of Forbes's 2024 30 Under 30 in Media

For readers of Seating Arrangements and The Most Fun We Ever Had, a gorgeous and gripping story of two families brought together to celebrate an unexpected marriage, twelve years after a devastating tragedy upended their lives

When Morgan and Benji surprise their families with a wedding invitation to Maine, they're aware the news of their clandestine relationship will come as a shock. Twelve years have passed since the stunning loss of sixteen-year-old Alice, Benji's sister and Morgan's best friend, and no one is quite the same. But the young couple decide to plunge headlong into matrimony, marking the first time their fractured families will reunite since Alice's funeral.

As the arriving guests descend upon the tranquil coastal town, they bring with them not only skepticism about the impromptu nuptials but also deep-seated secrets and agendas of their own. Peter, Morgan's father, may be trying to dissuade his daughter from saying "I do," while Linnie, Benji's mother, introduces a boyfriend who bears a tumultuous past of his own. Nick, Benji's father, is scheming to secure a new job before his wife--formerly his mistress--discovers he's lost his old one. Morgan, too, carries delicate secrets that threaten to jeopardize the happiness for which she has so longed. And as for Benji--well, he's just trying to make sure the whole weekend doesn't implode.

As the whirlwind weekend unfolds, old passions reignite, deep wounds resurface, and unearthed secrets threaten to shatter the fragile peace the wedding promises. With each new revelation, the to-be-weds and their complicated families are forced to question just how well they know the ones they hold dear.

Review Quotes

Praise for The World After Alice

"If you are after a literary romance that has a complex familial dynamic with an expansive feel, The World After Alice is the one for you. . . . This one will make you laugh and moments later choke you up with its intricately woven narrative that is impressively executed."
--Glamour

"In Lauren Aliza Green's debut novel, Brooklynites Morgan and Benjamin surprise their families with the news they're getting married--and soon gather everyone in Maine for the nuptials. There's history between their families: 12 years ago, Benjamin's sister Alice, who was also Morgan's best friend, jumped off a bridge and her body was never found. That past timeline is intertwined with the present of their marriage, and the fraught relationships between the families come to the fore as they navigate the lasting grief and bitterly held secrets."
--Town & Country

"The World After Alice is a lovely debut novel that glimmers with fine writing and notes of human insight. There's a quiet beauty to Lauren Aliza Green's work, and I am now a fan."
--Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

"The World After Alice is a study of grief, resilience, and surprising joy in the face of incomprehensible loss. I know these characters will stay with me."
--Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes and The Half Moon

"A page-turner of a family drama. The World After Alice is at turns brutally honest, funny, and deeply empathic."
--Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake

"Intricately structured and elegantly written, The World After Alice is a family drama that pivots between the sweeping and the intimate in seamless, wildly entertaining prose."
--Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X

"Lauren Aliza Green's The World After Alice is a bouquet of a book: thoughtful, heartfelt, funny, tender, tough, and gorgeously written. It is a novel about how love won't save you, except in the ways that it does, about the pain of family life, and also its transcendent qualities. Green is a tremendous new writer."
--Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book

"In The World After Alice, Lauren Aliza Green lays bare the mysteries of grief, growth, and love in the wake of unthinkable loss. Green writes with a poet's ear and an impressionist's eye, and the result is a wise, elegiac novel that is impossible to put down even after turning the last gorgeous page."
--Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This

"In this truly elegant novel, two families come together to celebrate a wedding. But through Lauren Aliza Green's precise, amusing, and beautiful writing, we get to explore the mysterious ways that joy and grief tangle together. Each character is tenderly drawn yet frighteningly real. I read this book, and the complicated relationships within, turning the pages as fast as I could, aching to understand the impossible."
--Hanna Halperin, author of I Could Live Here Forever

"A Maine wedding reunites two families--and resurrects buried griefs and secrets along the way. With a remarkable cast of characters Lauren Aliza Green creates a panoramic, suspenseful, and ultimately very moving exploration of loss and recovery. The World After Alice is a beautiful and accomplished debut."
--Laura Van Den Berg, author of The Third Hotel

"A surprise wedding in Maine resurrects emotional wounds and reveals the messy dynamics among two families in this tender, affecting debut. . . . Told over the course of the wedding weekend and in flashbacks to the weeks surrounding Alice's death, this character driven story will please readers who appreciate astute observations about human behavior and messy family dramas like Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead."
--Booklist

"This dramatic tragi-comedy, full of delicious bourgeois life-style detail, takes us right into the head of each character."
--The Daily Mail (UK)

About the Author

Lauren Aliza Green holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, American Short Fiction, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. She is the author of A Great Dark House, winner of the Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Fellowship, and the inaugural recipient of the Eavan Boland Emerging Poet Award, sponsored by Poetry Ireland and Stanford University. Her writing has received support from the Kenyon Review Workshop, Bread Loaf, and the Carson McCullers Center.