Run, Alice, Run

by Lynn Michell

Alice Green realises that reaching fifty is much the same as being invisible so why not make the most of it? Her head-in-the-sand husband doesn't notice the clothes mountain and the piles of pretty stationery.

When two police cars draw up outside her house in leafy Edinburgh, Alice knows the game is up. While dealing with the present, she backtracks through her memories, recasting the events and people who chipped away at her confidence and contentment over the years.

Run, Alice, Run is an irreverent coming-of-middle-age novel that looks with irony and black humour at the way society defines and diminishes women of all ages.

328 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2015

About the author

I was born in Liverpool, the daughter of a soldier, so my childhood was spent in barracks across the globe including two war zones. I grew up in Nairobi, Tripoli, Malta, Cyprus, Germany and the UK but never called anywhere home. Up to the age of 17, I lived in 28 houses, tents and flats and went to 17 schools. I’m envious of folk with strong roots because I have none.

Without stability, army brats can become solitary and self-sufficient or go off the rails. I escaped into books - my safe zones - away from marching soldiers and the colour khaki.

I was the third cohort to study English and Drama at Birmingham University, but I didn’t fit. My PhD thesis was on children’s language where English and Psychology melded and my fascination with words came full circle.

While lecturing at Keele university, Oliver & Boyd accepted my proposal for a writing scheme. Growing Up in Smoke and Shattered: Life with ME followed. The wonderful Women’s Press published two of my books under the name Helen Braid.

My debut novel, White Lies, is based partly on my elderly father’s memories of his time in Kenya fighting the Mao Mao. My second novel, Run, Alice, Run, is a retort to a society that makes older women feel irrelevant and invisible.

My third novel, The Red Beach Hut, my personal favourite, is out on October 1st.

I also run Linen Press, the only independent women’s press in the UK: www.linen-press.com

Reviews

[Jenny Twist · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you could speak to your younger self, what would you say? And, perhaps more importantly, what would your younger self say to you?
Alice, a beautiful woman who is slowly sliding into invisibility as she gets older, is desperate to escape the cage she has been forced into. Time to run, Alice. Time to fly.
I am very excited to discover this new (to me) author. It’s so hard to find really good writers amongst the millions available these days. But here she is – the golden needle in the haystack.
Lynn Michell’s writing is assured, fluent and very readable. Her characters live and breathe. And she has a message for all of us. Alice’s story is not just an engrossing read – it is a political statement about the position women still hold in our ‘enlightened’ society.
A wonderful, satisfying and inspiring story.

[Diana Skelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

'He had argued heatedly with his mother since he could talk, and they both got a kick out of it. Alice, on the other hand, had never argued with anyone because in her family it was considered rude and upsetting. Having never debated anything, she felt her way through life using emotional antennae which were finely tuned to people and places. Her ideas and assumptions were instinctive, intuitive and usually very accurate.'

'In the 1970s, white and black did not know if they were blending together or encircling themselves with barbed wire and shatterproof glass to defend their roots. Black librarians would arrive later and walk with sure, confident steps in the tracks they already knew because this was the place from which they came. Alice was a well-meaning but useless onion in a colourful begonia patch of first and second generation immigrants.'

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking a punt on a handful of book published by one of the many UK independent publishers has become one of life's especial pleasures. Not least for the fresh unexpectedness; the high quality entertainment, but also because doing so leads me to try several more of their list.

'Run Alice Run' is the absorbing, brilliantly constructed account of Alice, age fifty, contemplating the dramas whereby she reached the point she has got to in her life and by what means. Followed by how she deals with her disillusion.

I see I have had this sitting quietly on my to-be-read shelf since January. Read in one sitting, it seems a good idea to make a resolution to treat myself to a fresh tranche from Linen Press next January.

[Louise Worthington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice is a protagonist I cared about it in the end. She goes through quite an arc during the course of the story. There's lots to enjoy about this novel, the only reservation I had was the 'Interval' chapters which, for me, broke the flow of the story.