That shouldn't be at all off-putting to those who haven't read the earlier novel, the relevant backstory is all contained here so you won't miss anything essential. One involves the death of the Pitt family patriarch, estranged from his family, and the fire that destroys a residential London high-rise leaving many for dead. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind picking up the second book without reading the first, but I think the backstory on some of these characters is important, and the author doesn't rehash any of it.

Evans masterfully weaves these themes into the fabric of the narrative, creating a thought-provoking and emotionally charged reading experience. Yet he still wonders if he will ever know anyone the way he knew Melissa, and she in turn is nostalgic for their once safe haven. The novel delves into the tragic loss of Cornelius Winston Pit in a fire at Grenfall Tower, where many residents, including him, lost their lives.The Grenfell Tower fire serves as a central point around which the stories of loss and resilience revolve. Evans was nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction for her third novel, Ordinary People, which was a New Yorker, New Statesman and Financial Times book of the year, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. In the aftermath of Cornelius’ death, his estranged wife Alice and her three daughters Adel, Carol, and Melissa are left to grapple with their loss.

I got bored at about 4 hours and could no longer remember the various characters and how they related to the fire and the death of one person. In 2017, London’s Grenfell Tower, pictured in the background, caught fire, destroying 100 homes and killing 72 people. It serves as a reminder that despite progress, there is still much work to be done in dismantling systemic inequalities. A House for Alice” is at heart about the quest of the ageing matriarch Alice – mother of Melissa, her two older sisters Adel and Carol and estranged wife of their father Cornelius – to move back to Nigeria where, slowly, a house is being built for her. The book’s eponymous matriarch has a habit of coming to a standstill while conversing with her friend on the stroll back from church: “forwardness occasionally distracted”, she and Evans both seem to find.Sprawling but always engaging, the novel’s cast is filled with rounded individuals, their problems and options as Black, middle-class Londoners showcased at work and play and contemplation, with humor and empathy. And the contrast is I think even more deliberate and bought out in a number of ways: Michael (a key protagonist in both stories and now a committed social justice campaigner) takes time to reflect on the failed promises of the Obama-election; earlier, when his second wife – Nicole, a once famous singer – throws a party to celebrate Meghan marrying into the Royal Family (as an aside the author’s debut novel starts with Charles and Di’s wedding), Michael is more focused on the contrast with growing homelessness; and the only newly inaugurated administration in this book is Theresa May’s government and her early mishandling of the Grenfell Tower crisis as well as the implicit (if not explicit) message that Britain is no longer welcoming to those born elsewhere.

It gives a very in-depth look at families, love and what ties us together, without really having a main character, it allows you a peek into all members of the family, their relationships and dynamics. As a result, Alice, a mourning widow and matriarch, begins to consider moving from her London flat to her hometown in Nigeria, where ostensibly there is a home being built for her to retire to.

This book is both political and beautiful, grounded in real world events but it also reads like a poem. There are several characters we need to keep track of, and it is often difficult to keep note of how they are related to one another. Broad in range, vivid in detail, alight often with eloquent language, Evans’ fourth novel, set among a Black community in London, takes time to reveal itself. could seem an odd note, as we suddenly join Cornelius seemingly being turned away from heaven (Cornelius’s behaviour on earth, particularly towards his daughters, and the long term impact of it on their lives and relationships is a key dynamic to the novel’s later development).