Pinkerton's Sister

Book excerpt: A sprawling stream-of-conscious novel set primarily in the head of Alice Pinkerton at the dawn of the twentieth century. Alice isn't yet ready for the new age; she's a vestige of Victorian times, a "madwoman" living on the third floor (not in the attic, she insists) of her family's home. "No one was as close to her as words on a page," Alice muses, and indeed, she relates more to characters from the novels of George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Reade than to the people who surround her, especially the thoroughly modern socialite Mrs. Albert Comstock, who represents everything Alice hates. Alice's doctor, who seeks to cure her of her "malady," proclaims, "Imagination is an impediment to progress." For Alice, there's no more chilling sentiment.