2017 IASA Book Award
The Italian American Studies Association committee is pleased to present the 2017 Book Award to Camilla Trinchieri for Seeking Alice (Excelsior Editions, State University of New York Press 2016).
The committee found this novel to be a wonderful work of large scope, meaningful detail, and evocative emotion. A rich saga, Seeking Alice tells a story of moral complexity during a momentous time in US / Italy relations. It describes Rome with a painterly precision. It is a story of philosophical weight and electric prose.
Dennis Barone, University of Saint Joseph
Joanna Clapps Herman, Manhattanville College
Fred Misurella, East Stroudsburg University
“Seeking Alice” is a gripping story of love and loss that centers on Marco, an Italian diplomat; Alice, his American wife; and their young children. Stationed in Prague during World War II, Marco and Alice become enemies when the United States enters the war, forcing Alice and the children to move from Prague to Rome and finally to Cernobbio in a desperate attempt to flee to Switzerland. Through alternating passages narrated by Alice and daughter Susie, readers shuttle back and forth between war-torn Europe and 1950s Massachusetts to search for answers and unravel the mystery about what really happened to Alice during the war. “Seeking Alice” by Camilla Trinchieri is a deftly crafted and compelling story of the disintegration of an American and Italian family caught in Europe during World War II. It is one of those all-too-rare novels that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf. While very highly recommended for community, college, and university library Literary Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Seeking Alice” is also available in a Kindle format