With her first novel, Sophie Jabes presents a fable on women's fragile self-image and the old chestnut of 'being nice' to please men. Deceptively simple, the story is in reality a twisted, melancholic, and darkly funny tale that its author takes through to an excessive conclusion. There is nothing wrong with Alice. She is attractive, even beautiful. All is well. One day she will meet her handsome prince. And then her father announces that as she is no Marilyn Monroe, she 'must be nice to men.' Wounded right to the depths of her being, Alice starts to fill that emptiness with food: calzone and mozzarella, flavoured ice creams and chocolate tarts. Experiencing sex for the first time, she finds the man has left money. Is this what 'being nice' means? Men come and go in her flat in Rome. They bear gifts of food, which she eats as she offers her body and her speciality: 'the ice cream cornet'. Alice grows in size until she cannot move. For Fulvio and Flavio, escapees from the mental hospital, Alice prepares her last meal. AUTHOR: Born in Milan in 1958, Sophie Jabes's childhood and adolescence was spent in Rome, before travelling the globe. She has worked in television, and currently lives in Paris. Her second novel, Caroline assasine was published in France in 2004 and her third, Clitomotrice, in 2005. REVIEWS: "This surreal frenzy of melancholy and black humour is a fable concerning the fragility of a female self-image that is continually shaped by society. A flippant criticism from her father leads Alice to subjugate herself to varying degrees of humiliation in an effort to please all around her, as she becomes a vessel for food and sex. The resulting grotesque denouement involving cannibalism and twins escaped from a mental hospital is barely digestible." - Dave Thomas in Buzz Magazine
