“I want to start by saying this is not a story. It’s a road trip.” – Season 1 Episode 1 of Alice Isn’t Dead.
If you have been a faithful listener of Joseph Fink’s fictional podcast “Welcome to Night Vale,” then listening to his series “Alice Isn’t Dead” would come as naturally to you as the uncertain feeling that wells up within when encountering liminal spaces like roadside public restrooms and empty rest areas.
Just like how “Welcome to Night Vale” tells the story of the desert town Night Vale through the narrative lens of a community radio news host Cecil, who reports on local news and events such as the ominous Glow Cloud hovering over the Arby’s, the dangers of going to the community library, and the hidden civilization that lives under the bowling alley, “Alice Isn’t Dead” is told through the solemn and plaintive musings of trucker Keisha narrated and told through a CB radio to Alice. While the novelization of the podcast does not feature Keisha’s first-person narrative, the effect is still the same: haunting, terrifying, and full of love.
Keisha is on the search for her allegedly dead wife, Alice, whom she thought was dead for years before seeing her again in the background of live news reports in various locations across America. With only one clue to go by- Bay and Creek corporation- Keisha embarks on a long road trip to discover that the conspiracy that entangles Alice also strangles a whole nation: isolated murders and unsolved serial killings are committed by the monstrous Thistle Men; oracles haunting rest stops and diners dressed in hoodies that hide their lack of faces, and always with the overwhelming scent of heather; a war that goes on hidden and in plain sight between the Thistle Men, Bay and Creek, and Praxis.
The horror that the novel describes is not just about the existence of inhuman murderers or the way the supernatural entraps ordinary people with nothing more to them than their anxiety and will to live, but that the public knows that they exist- and even witness them happening- in plain sight and looks away as though they cannot stand to witness what they see. It is also how institutions that are supposed to protect the public and the ordinary people, such as the police or the mundane bureaucratic sides of the government, enable the horrors to happen and those who try to do anything about it are quickly silenced. Both the book and the podcast emphasize that evil things and events that are beyond normal human understanding are supported for centuries on a societal and institutional level, and that it is up to those living in marginalized communities, who are activists, and who are helpful who do their best to stand up to it.
One doesn’t need to listen to the podcast first in order to understand the novel; the novel centralizes the narrative arc while the podcast includes various creepypasta locations that Keisha passes through on her journey. However, the novel is a richer experience after listening to the podcast. When told through Keisha’s point of view- narrated by Jasika Nicole – the evil she witnesses is more palpable, and the mysterious places she visits are edified. She is a storyteller you might encounter when chatting with someone while waiting for the gas pump to finish filling up the tank, or when passing by and catching phrases of a tale told to a different audience. One can hear the echoes of past happiness and love when she talks about her life with Alice, and the corresponding loneliness of being without Alice.
The novel places you as an observer of Keisha, and of the many key players in Alice Isn’t Dead. However, the reader does not see her as inscrutable or unknowing as how other limited third person narration can be, where we find out about the protagonist’s motivations by trying to read between the lines. Descriptions of places and time are sparse, but the words chosen are exact: there is no room for error in interpretation. We know Keisha as a woman anxious about the world, but with the courage to see through her goals in spite of points in her life that are spiraling out of control.
The tone is wry and never facetious; some things are changed, such as setting descriptions or narrative points, from the podcast but not distractingly so. Until actually stated, one doesn’t really know that years have passed between chapters, which may lend to the feeling that this journey is timeless and unending, but it can also be that those gaps between one event to another is due to not including a supernatural place that Keisha has visited.
The fact that the novel doesn’t include the places that Keisha visits is one thing that I felt to be critical about the novel. Many of the places she visits are one-note and are not always about the overarching antagonist of the story, but they do inform us about the world she lives in. The novel makes it seem that there is only Bay and Creek against the Thistle Men or about the mysterious place Praxis, but they are only a part of a world that blurs the line between reality and the supernatural. Some of these places expand on the role of Praxis and how ambiguous its role in the way was, while others include intimate moments that externalizes Keisha’s fears about the world and about her relationship with Alice. Each place strengthens her or leaves her drained, and often without a satisfying conclusion. What remains for the listener is that the world is an unsettling place.
Aside from the plot and story, there is something unexpected that I found when reading it: there was an instance of a misspelled word towards the end of the novel that didn’t get picked up from the final editing process. This isn’t, of course, a slight against the novel, only that it’s something funny to see a bit of human error.
For readers who are into supernatural stories featuring road trips through American highways, same-sex romances and relationships where queer characters are certainly not dead, and also enjoy being genuinely creeped out by creepypasta stories and tall tales and folklore, Alice Isn’t Dead feeds that itch. If I had to give it some equivalence, it would be by comparing it with Courage: the Cowardly Dog, Stephen King novels with subverted tropes if not less, and American Gods without gods.
Movable Typo 