All about Alice – The author’s apology.

Let me tell you a secret. I didn’t choose to write Alice. The novel chose me. If you don’t find that strange, you will understand what I’m trying to say. The idea for Alice’s story had haunted me for some years. Long before I introduced her as a character in the 1967 trilogy, I knew who she would be and the part she would play.

As I wrote the story, I jokingly referred to Alice as my Kafkaesque novel. Unlike Kafka, I prefer to write fiction of an uplifting nature. Dark themes have never attracted me. I leave that kind of writing to others. I hope readers will ALICE as an uplifting allegory.

I further hope Lewis Carroll fans take no exception to my use of his work as a leitmotif. Since he wrote Alice in Wonderland, generations have enjoyed this wonderful tale. Unlike Lewis Carroll’s story, I never intended to make Alice fantastical, nor could I.

There are references to other authors in the novel, Virginia Woolf and Gore Vidal, for which I make no apologies. These writers wrote about similar or related themes, and they clearly had some bearing on my writing.

As I jotted down my ideas for the novel, I knew I needed to draw together a number of themes relating to the Jimmy Mack Sixties saga/series. After all, Alice was always intended to be a book in the ongoing series.

My choice of The Sixties as a decade was not simply as a historical setting or backdrop. The Sixties remain emblematic, a symbol of a time of social and cultural change. The change brought about by The Pill had empowered women, but not without consequences. Sexism was then and has continued to remain a disturbing problem within many societies throughout the world. Men may be sympathetic, but they are not always empathetic about what happens to women and girls in their daily lives. Put in their position, men and boys would soon see the world differently.

Alice becoming a Mod was integral to her teenage identity and her part in the saga. The Mod subculture was a distinct youth movement visible on the streets of Sixties Britain and in keeping with the fast-moving social changes as they occurred. While Mods may have had a passion for fashion and were all about having a good time all the time, they were aspirational young people at heart. Something for nothing was never an option for them. Most

implicitly, they understood if you wanted anything out of life, you had to be prepared to work to get it.

Today, the Sixties Generation X are retired and in the twilight of their lives. Many became achievers in their respective walks of life. Nor have many of these original Sixties Mods forgotten their young adult roots. They have remained Mods at heart. For them, the saying, once a Mod always a Mod, still remains true. For many of them, their youth has also remained the best of times.