Alice Isn’t Dead. Joseph Fink
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HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperVoyager
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Joseph Fink 2018
Jacket design by Rob Wilson © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Joseph Fink asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008323707
Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9780008323721
Version: 2018-10-15
To Meg, who took this road trip with me. And to Jasika and Jon, who made it possible for me to share it.
This isn’t a story. It’s a road trip.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Part I: Thistle
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part II: Bay and Creek
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Part III: Praxis
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Acknowledgments
About the Publisher
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
Because the dead return, because light reverses, because the sky is a gap, because it’s a shout, because light reverses, because the dead return, because footsteps in the basement, because footsteps on the roof, because the sky is a shout, because it’s a gap, because the grass doesn’t grow, or grows too much, or grows wrong, because the dead return, because the dead return.
Keisha Taylor settled back into the booth and tried to enjoy her turkey club. The turkey club did not make this easy.
A diner attached to a gas station, a