Alice Adams

What It's About

Set in an unnamed Midwestern city in the early twentieth century, this novel follows Alice Adams, a bright, charming young woman whose family sits on the lower rungs of a town obsessed with money and standing. Her father is a loyal but poorly paid clerk, her mother is restless and bitter about their circumstances, and her brother is drifting into trouble. Determined to be accepted by the wealthier set, Alice invents a more glamorous version of herself, and her hopes settle on Arthur Russell, a well-off newcomer she is desperate to impress. Tarkington treats her with a mixture of comedy and real tenderness, and the book won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1922.

Key Concepts

The novel is a study of social ambition and self-deception: how pretence can feel like protection, and what it costs to keep up appearances. It shows the pressure a family's finances place on every member of it, and a town whose old social order is being unsettled by new industrial money. Tarkington's reputation has faded since his lifetime, and some critics see his approach as gentler and more sentimental than that of his modernist contemporaries, though this remains one of his best-regarded books. Modern readers should also be aware that its portrayal of Black servant characters reflects the racial stereotyping of its period.

About the Author

Booth Tarkington (1869–1946) was an American novelist and dramatist from Indianapolis, Indiana. Enormously popular in the 1910s and 1920s, he was often regarded as the leading American novelist of his day and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice. He drew heavily on his Midwestern background, served a single term in the Indiana House of Representatives, and kept writing late in life despite failing eyesight.