Kit and Alice are happy, in love and enjoying a luxurious weekend break abroad when the unthinkable happens: their car spins off a mountain road and into an empty desert valley. Their lives are changed in an instant. The accident shatters their faith in each other and in their relationship. At home in London its consequences leave them confused by their own feelings and bewildered by each other's: what was decided is now uncertain; what was transparent, opaque. Neither seems able to bridge the widening gap between them. An unexpected intervention from Kit's domineering father, Tod, dislodges them further, as Alice is deposited with her mother-in-law at a remote Cornish farm, leaving Kit in London to defend an increasingly besieged identity. With an elegant lyricism, poignancy and humour, The Trouble with Alice unwinds the conventions of a love story. It offers a powerful study of estrangement in the aftermath of tragedy but also speaks of compassion, of renewal and ultimately, perhaps, of reconciliation.
