Books by Alice Jolly

Written by award-winning author Alice Jolly, and based on an idea by the book lovers of Swindon town, this funny and, ultimately, dystopian tale, reminds us of the importance of literature in an increasingly dark world.

`I would place it among the classics of this century and the last' Sally Bayley, author of Girl With DoveIf you tell a story oft enough So it become true As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth.

An exquisite and original take on the family saga, from the PEN Ackerley Prize-winning Alice Jolly

WINNER OF THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2016'Beautifully written and brutally honest' Sunday Times'Her account is astonishingly moving and her prose nothing short of hypnotic' IndependentWhen Alice Jolly's second child was stillborn and all subsequent attempts to have another baby failed, she began to consider every possible option, no matter how unorthodox.Shot through with humour and full of hope, Dead Babies and Seaside Towns is an intensely personal account of the search for an alternative way to create a family. As she battles through miscarriage, IVF and failed adoption attempts, Alice finds comfort in the faded charm of Britain's crumbling seaside towns. The journey ultimately leads her and her husband to a small town in Minnesota, and to two remarkable women who offer to make the impossible possible.In this beautifully written book, Alice Jolly describes with a novelist's skill the events that many others have lived through - even if they may feel compelled to keep them hidden. Her decision not to hide but to share them, without a trace of self-pity, turns Dead Babies and Seaside Towns into a universal story: one that begins in tragedy but ends in joy.