Authors Love Alice

There seems to be something about the name Alice that writers can't resist. Obviously I find it appealing myself, since I used it not just for a book but for a real live daughter.

Did it all begin with Alice in Wonderland?

Then there was Go Ask Alice, and Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More...

But now there seem to be more Alices on the book shelves than ever before! Here's a sample:
Alice, I Think
Paper Alice
Alice Alone
Alice in Zombieland, Alice in Writerland, Alice in La La Land etc
The Agony of Alice
About Alice
Alice Parker's Metamorphosis
Dangerously Alice, Almost Alice and Intensely Alice
Finding Alice
Alice the Fairy
Alice Adams
Alice (numerous authors, including Sandra Wilson, Judith Hermann, Margarette Janoski, Myles Overton, EV Cunningham, Anne Worboys, Nancy Ross, Gary Smith, AK Albaari)
Alice and Aldo
A is For Alice
A Town Like Alice
The Liberation of Alice Love
Alice At Heart
Alice-Miranda At School
Hurry Up, Alice!
What Alice Forgot

... and that's without trying very hard.

A few years ago I started collecting second hand books with "Alice" and "Evie" in the titles. I soon amassed a shelf full of books for the former, but I had to give up when all I could find for Evie was Deliver Us From Evie, and I could see a recipe for resentment brewing.


Is there something about Alice, or do I just notice it more because I have one of my own? Has anyone observed any other popular literary names popping up?

An Abundance of Katherines*

In the holidays we visited our local cemetery. Alice, being an emo in training, loves it there. She and her friends scrambled between the gravestones, respectfully apologising if they accidentally stepped on anyone, and scattering flowers from our backyard onto the graves that particularly appealed, especially if there was someone buried there who shared their own name. I remember the particular thrill of finding an inscription for a departed Kate or Katherine, the tiny sizzle of a bond with a long-dead stranger.

As a child, I was always drawn toward historical figures who shared my name, and there were plenty of them -- Henry VIII married no less than three Catherines! Katharine Hepburn was a forceful, glamorous Kate, and Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angels was the smart, sassy Angel. Best of all was The Taming of the Shrew. The 1967 film with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made a big impression on me, especially Petruchio's speech:

You are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation.

Sigh! There was another bossy Katharine in Edward Eager's first two magic books (despite what Petruchio says, literary Kates tend not to be "sweet").

So tell me, what famous figures who shared your name (if any!) did you identify with?

NB I've just found myself listed as a "famous" Kate! How hilarious!

Not-Quite-NaNoWriMo Update

A week in, I'm up to 13,000 words. I'm trying each day to write 500 words, then do yoga, another 500, then lunch, another 500 and then I can read as a reward before hometime, and so far it's working pretty well. (I didn't do much at the weekend because we went away, but I still did a bit.) I don't know how people fit this around their normal lives and jobs - I dips me lid, proper NaNoWriMo-ers!



* which I must confess I haven't actually read yet

The Name-Go-Round

I am slightly obsessed with names, particularly fashions in names, what's hot, what's not. This stems partly from having to choose baby names myself and also with choosing suitable names for characters. Nothing is more jarring to me than reading a contemporary book where the characters all have names that were highly fashionable in the 70s or 80s but have since fallen from favour (like Caroline and Jennifer). My current WIP, set in 1974, features Julie and Nadine, daughters of Barbara and Allan. I obsessively check the birth notices every week to see what's in and out.

I'm fascinated by the cycles that names seem to churn through. At the moment we are living through a revival of the kinds of names that were last hot at the turn of last century. One of my friends pointed out a few years ago, "Our daughters are all named after Edwardian housemaids!" -- Alice, Thea, Lucy, Evie, and Nelly (since then Freya has arrived to break the trend). All the little girls at school are called May and Amelia and Esther and Grace and Sophie. The little boys could be a roll call of WWI soldiers -- Jacks and Wills and Harrys and Stans and Henrys and Alberts.

Of course this matter becomes especially pertinent when there is a BABY on the way (not in our family, but one of our dearests!) and the name debate becomes positively fevered. We named both our girls in utero (perhaps rashly) but it wasn't until I attached a name to my unborn child that I could regard her as a real person. Before Evie was born, we often spoke of her by name to Alice -- when Evie comes, we'll do this or that -- which I think helped Alice accept her arrival quite happily; she was a proper member of the family long before she popped out.

But I digress. Penni and I were talking names this weekend and remarking on the fact that names from our grandparents' generation are back in style. Which leads me to ask: what were your grandparents' names? Are there any neglected gems lurking out there?

(For the record, mine were Matthew Irving and Doris Alice on one side, and Frederick Charles and Pamela on the other. If we'd had a boy, he would have been Charlie.)