Calvin Trillin, About Alice

Calvin Trillin's wife Alice died of cardiac arrest in 2001. During their 36-year marriage, Alice had served as Trillin's muse and first editor, and she often featured as a sort of character in his writing. (I confess I've only read one other book by Trillin, his 2001 novel Tepper Isn't Going Out). In About Alice, published in 2006, Trillin seems to be trying to define his wife's personality, to preserve a piece of it for the record, to explain why she inspired his devotion. It is not a maudlin account. He writes about Alice's attitudes toward parenting and money, for example, about the role she played in his writing, her charity work, her cancer scare in 1976. The book is a sort of extended love letter to Alice, to be sure, but a further point of the exercise is to be found on the book's dedication page. About Alice is dedicated not to her, but to the couple's grandchildren, who will never know her. The book is a nice gift to them, and to Alice.

About Alice is brief—it only takes about an hour to read—and Trillin's prose goes down easy. The book should be of particular interest to readers familiar with Trillin's characterization of his wife in earlier books.