Alice, or The Wild Girl

Alice could have been any number of things: an adventure story, a tale of daring deeds and heroism, a love story. When it begins with a girl stranded on a deserted island and rescued by the crew of an American ship, there are many directions it can take, several of which have already been taken before. These stories are tales as old as exploration itself; even Shakespeare has one that falls along similar lines.

Liska, in my opinion, chose the most interesting possibility. His novel is a story about possibility, and the many ways in which it falls flat. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a tragedy, but it does have that air around it, whispering about what might have been but cannot be. Alice herself is a figure out of tragedy, having lost so much only to find herself alone on an island. Bird, her would-be savior, is as well, providing an excellent example of perfectly human strivings and failings.

In short, Alice is a portrait of America and Americans shortly before the Civil War: neither gilded nor muddied up for any romantic effect, the characters and the setting feel real and compelling.