Once a child with such promise, Alice never dreamed that now, in 1969, she'd wind up stuck in Ebonton, a corrupt, culturally backward, former coal town that destroys dreams as brutally as the mantis-like coal breaker looming above her home. For an intelligent, unconventional woman of the shoot-for-the-moon 1960s, it's the worst possible fate. But two decades ago, she'd had no other choice but to pack up her devastating secrets and go on the run.
For years, those secrets, intensified by a man bent on destroying her, have pushed Alice to the edge of sobriety-and sanity-and strained her relationship with her teenage son, Jade. Despite her quest to keep him safe, that omnipresent figure from Alice's past threatens to steal her son's future, and the cracks in her resolve are beginning to show.
At 18, Jade dreams of escaping a stifling existence, avoiding the Vietnam draft, and finally getting answers from his mother about who he is. Except Alice is slowly losing her mind to whisky-fueled depression and a self-styled spirituality centered around an iconic Catholic statue.
When Jade sets out to mine the answers for himself, while Alice plans vengeance against her nemesis, the blowback could cost them both everything.
Set against the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s, Alice Was Not Her Name is a riveting tale of mystery, suspense, psychological intrigue, the torments of gender and racial oppression, and a quest to seek redemption against all odds. If today's America seems riven in two, Alice Was Not Her Name is a look back to a time when the seeds of the divide were sown.