Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

Published by Simon & Schuster on November 28, 2023

Alice, Sadie, and Celine is a study of the three women who lend their names to the novel’s title. Celine McKeogh is a “decorated feminist” who teaches gender studies at Berkeley. Her daughter Sadie learned to hate Celine during her childhood because so many people hate Celine that hating her made Sadie feel normal. Celine is angry at Sadie because Sadie isn’t angry at men. “Well, you should be,” Celine assures her daughter. Sadie is too busy being angry at her mother to spare any time for men, apart from a recently acquired boyfriend who needs some alterations (“shorten the sincerity and let out the sex appeal”). But Sadie at 23 is still a virgin and uncertain that she can rid herself of that affliction.

Sadie’s best childhood friend was and remains Alice, although a rift has separated them ever since Alice moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Alice is back in San Francisco to act in a community playhouse version of A Winter’s Tale. The venue is unimpressive but Alice notes with pride that the acting company received four stars on Yelp. Perhaps because she made a promise to spend the weekend with her boyfriend or perhaps because she is angry at Alice, Sadie sends Celine in her stead to watch Alice’s performance on opening night.

Celine is unhappy to be drafted into service but Celine is unhappy about everything. Although she has never taken Alice seriously, Celine is overcome by a sudden onrush of lust when she sees Alice playing the role of Hermione in tight jeans. Celine makes a move on Alice, who is too stunned to resist. Soon embraced by lustful desires of her own, Alice begins a clandestine relationship with Celine. Will it be a friendship destroyer when Sadie learns the truth?

Backstories follow, developing the childhoods of Sadie and Alice and the adulthood of Celine. It is easy to understand why Alice and Sadie bonded as kids. Alice had minimal interaction with her own mother and envied Sadie for having a mother who fought with her constantly. Alice grew up in a comfortable home but she “felt the house like a snake feels the fraying skin — shiny scales gone lusterless, old iridescence — that it is past time to molt.”

Sadie envies Alice for knowing “so much about men. You’re a man whisperer.” Sadie is a planner but because life interferes with plans, Sadie “lived a life of fictive imaginings.” In the present, we learn how Sadie’s plan to lose her virginity goes awry, probably because she read her mother’s first book and believes that sex with males is always coercive, notwithstanding her decision to date the least coercive guy imaginable.

Alice is “generous and kind, agreeable, pretty, adored by all.” But does she have any substance? It isn’t surprising that after her lust abates, Celine realizes she has allowed herself to become “madly infatuated with a nobody.”

Celine is the most interesting character. At 44, her academic career is stuck. Her early work has suffered from the plague of widespread acceptance. Ideas that were once radical have become mainstream, robbing her of her relevance. In middle age, Celine cannot even scandalize her own daughter. Celine has responded to her circumstances by developing “a remarkable ability to sniff out happiness and stifle it like a fire extinguisher.” It’s no wonder that she’s widely disliked by all, although she does have a certain charm that shines through her self-centered demeanor.

The novel takes a long jump into the future as it winds up the story, featuring the child of a main character. We learn that the main characters learned some lessons. Good for them. The child, on the other hand, is judgmental and still has much to learn. Maybe the point of jumping ahead (which otherwise baffled me a bit) is to demonstrate that each new generation has a lot to learn before it is qualified to judge members of the previous generation. Or perhaps the point is to show that some adults still need to grow up, regardless of age.

Sara Blakley-Cartwright’s story is amusing because her characters adhere closely to stereotypes. Celine is a caricature of a woman who became an influential feminist in an era where feminist scholarship was trying to establish its relevance in academia and who cannot easily cope with the loss of attention she experienced when gender studies moved beyond her early contribution.

Celine’s relationship with Sadie is anchored in the stereotype of mother-daughter relationships involving mothers who want to be admired more than loved by their daughters and stunted daughters who, fighting to reject maternal advice they may have already internalized, want to be accepted more than guided by their mothers. Alice represents the stereotype of a pretty girl who aspires to be an actress and, having given little thought to her life, is surprised but unprepared when she encounters new ideas and experiences.

I don’t know if the story intends to satirize porn, but sex with a best friend’s MILF, coupled with a lesbian twist, seems to merge multiple Pornhub categories. Perhaps the story is meant to titillate, although (unlike Pornhub) the sex is far from graphic. The plot doesn’t amount to much —a disappointment to readers who can’t live without a thrilling plot — but it is a reliable vehicle to ferry the characters through the novel. Blakley-Cartwright’s observant prose exposes the characters’ foibles and pokes good-natured fun at the social groups they represent. Alice Sadie Celine is an easy book to enjoy.

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