The End of Alice
Encyclopedia
A. M. Homes
Amy M. Homes is an American writer. She is best-known for her controversial novels and unusual stories, most notably The End of Alice , a novel about a convicted child molester and murderer...
. It was published in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Homes Scribner and in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Anchor UK.
The story is mostly narrated by a middle-aged pedophile and child killer who is serving a life sentence.
He receives correspondence from a 19-year-old girl who is on her summer holiday from college and has plans to seduce a 12-year-old neighbourhood boy. The child killer encourages her and gives her tips on seducing children and he delights in the girl's letters detailing the progress of what she is up to. The scenes involving the girl (who is never named) are written from a third-person perspective.
Plot summary
The child killer – identified only as "Chappy" – who narrates most of the novel, has been in prison for 23 years. Now in his 50s and with a paroleParole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
hearing approaching, he receives a letter from an unnamed 19-year-old girl who takes a morbid interest in his case. She then begins to relate how she plans on seducing a 12-year-old boy named Matthew who lives in her neighbourhood.
The girl corresponds with him and the man’s past is contrasted with explicit details of how she seduces Matthew, a typical young boy with many of the unattractive habits a 12-year-old can have, plus a few uniquely disgusting ones of his own creation.
Chappy encourages her, and the girl soon accomplishes her mission by first giving Matthew tennis lessons and then, when she babysits him, strips naked and gives him a quick hands-on lesson in feminine biology. The pair soon have sex and continue to do so on regular occasions.
Chappy eagerly reads the girl's letters as she describes her successes, although he also berates her for her poor grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
and for her liberal use of exclamation points. There are several scenes of prison sex
Prison sexuality
Prison sexuality deals with sexual relationships between confined individuals or those between a prisoner and a prison employee . Since prisons are separated by gender, most sexual activity is conducted with a same-sex partner, often in contradiction to a person's normal social sexual orientation...
.
During the novel, Chappy makes frequent references to "Alice," his victim, but it is only towards the end of the book that he finally elaborates. Alice was a 12-year-old girl with whom he had a sexual relationship. At the very end of the story, during his parole hearing, we find out the convict brutally murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed and decapitated
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
Alice after she blamed him for her bleeding, which was actually her period
Menstruation
Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...
(she didn't know what it was). He tried to explain to her what had happened, but she kept threatening to kill him.
The novel also references Chappy's childhood, especially his unstable, emotionally and sexually abusive mother.
Reception
The book was the subject of significant controversy, not just for explicit scenes of child sexual abuseChild sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
and also prison rape
Prison rape
Prison rape commonly refers to the rape of inmates in prison by other inmates or prison staff.In 2001, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 140,000 inmates had been raped while incarcerated. and there is a significant variation in the rates of prison rape by race...
, but for the way it presented the views of the two protagonists in that they believed sex with minors
Pederasty
Pederasty or paederasty is an intimate relationship between an adult and an adolescent boy outside his immediate family. The word pederasty derives from Greek "love of boys", a compound derived from "child, boy" and "lover".Historically, pederasty has existed as a variety of customs and...
was perfectly acceptable. Defenders of the book argued that it was mostly written from the perspective of the pedophiles and therefore could not help but display their beliefs.
When it was published in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1997, representatives of the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children
NSPCC
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a United Kingdom charity campaigning and working in child protection.-History:...
complained about it and made an appeal to bookstores not to stock it, which only W. H. Smith fulfilled. The NSPCC's spokesman, Jim Harding, described The End Of Alice as "the most vile and perverted novel I've ever read." It received rave reviews from many critics, however. Randall Kenan of Elle magazine, stated: "Homes manages — with language both lyrical and frighteningly direct — to usher the reader into the horrific landscape of a disturbed mind and, at the same time, of a funny, vulnerable, ultimately very sad human being."