With twenty books and countless essays and magazine articles, the New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard has amassed a unique following of readers who fell in love with her memoir detailing her relationship with J.D. Salinger, her true crime flair and her personal essays touching on everything from the role of swimming to the emotional work of everyday life.
Now she’s returned with a compelling coming-of-age novel about toxic privilege, betrayal and the illusion that is paradise.
In Wonderland’s Alice is a 14-year-old girl from a troubled home on the wrong side of the tracks who winds up as a mother’s helper in Wonderland, an elegant lakeside estate in Maine where a wealthy family summers. The escape from her life on the battlefield of her parents’ marriage becomes part envy as she watches girls her age sashay past her at the country club where she takes the children to play tennis and part obsession with the family father who pays more attention to her than her own dad ever did. Then a shattering death leads her to question everything she thought she knew about privilege, power and the price of belonging.
Sponsored by The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Authors’ Series, honoring Theodore and Caroline Newhouse and Susan Newhouse