Alice Adams [Paperback]

Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prizewinning 1921 novel about a young woman's close encounter with her social striving dreams, now republished in a gorgeous new edition.?

Alice Adams is young and pretty, but is struggling to improve her station. Her world revolves around dances put on by richer girls, for which she ingeniously strives to turn her less fashionable dress into something more fashionable and explain away the embarrassing behavior of her younger brother. Money structures this unnamed small town in the Midwest, but Alices father has never made much of himself, thus foiling her mothers constant desire to see Alice and the rest of the family better situated. Will Alices future prospects improve when finally Mr. Adams decides to go into business for himself making glue? Will her latest handsome, kind suitor stay around long enough for an engagement? Or will the pernicious forces of greed, gossip, and in 1920s America bring them all down???

Booth Tarkingtons novel was published when his fame was at its height: Tarkington was considered the preeminent American novelist of the day, a celebrity who would also serve a term representing his native Indiana in Congress. Alice Adams was similarly famous for decades after its publication; the 1935 movie starring Katherine Hepburn based on the novel was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy Awards. Today, this lauded chronicler of the Midwest is lesser read but no less fascinating, and his novels as worthy, suspenseful, and poignant as they were a century ago.

Booth Tarkington(18691946) was the preeminent American novelist of his day, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, forThe Magnificent Ambersonsin 1919 andAlice Adamsin 1922. He was a national celebrity, esteemed for his Midwestern regionalist fiction, who would also serve a term in the Indiana House of Representatives. He was born and died Indianapolis, Indiana.

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