ALICE

A woman finds herself stuck in a bizarre version of her normal life in this contemporary play on Lewis Carroll’s celebrated works.

As the story opens, Alice, a 26-year-old waitress at the Madd Hatter Bar & Restaurant in (fictional) Hobohemia, New Jersey, is going home for the night. On her way to her Brooklyn apartment, she hits a pothole and drives her electric scooter right into sheets of glass and mirrors. When she comes to, she’s back at the bar, only things have become rather curious. Her friend and co-worker Naida, for one, is now an anthropomorphized cat named Dinah. Other characters pop up that readers may also find familiar, from a hookah-smoking caterpillar in the cellar to a regular patron with furry white paws and long, floppy rabbit ears. Alice can’t explain any of what’s happening, although everyone else in the bar seems unfazed. Confounding things further is her apparent memory loss, as she can’t recall how she got to work or where her scooter is. She can only hope that someone in this motley bunch has answers. B, the author of The Freaky Fungal Family Tree (2021), keeps things lighthearted in this tale, which offers such sights as a knight in full armor randomly kicking patrons’ backsides. Characters are more peculiar than frightening, even as “the Redd Queen” screams threats. Despite all this, Alice has a grounded, relatable backstory; she’s a Croatian immigrant who’s racked up debt because of the Covid-19 lockdown’s closing many restaurants. This novel, despite its brevity, sometimes feels stagnant, as it unfolds almost entirely in the crowded bar. It all leads to an illuminating denouement that most readers will see coming thanks to B’s dropping periodic clues throughout. Krakow’s simple artwork comprises sparsely detailed black-and-white sketches save for one of Alice on a scooter and an ethereal, starry night sky.

A modest but absurdly funny retelling of a classic tale.