Black Alice

Black Alice is a novel by Thomas M. Disch and John Sladek (writing as Thom Demijohn), published in 1968. During the 1960s, in Virginia, while the blacks fight for their civil rights, a young white girl is kidnapped in Baltimore. Little Alice Raleigh, eleven years and blonde like corn, and heiress of an immense fortune, is held for a ransom of a million dollars. Her kidnappers, trying to make her invisible to the police officers and the federal ag... more

Black Alice is a novel by Thomas M. Disch and John Sladek (writing as Thom Demijohn), published in 1968. During the 1960s, in Virginia, while the blacks fight for their civil rights, a young white girl is kidnapped in Baltimore. Little Alice Raleigh, eleven years and blonde like corn, and heiress of an immense fortune, is held for a ransom of a million dollars. Her kidnappers, trying to make her invisible to the police officers and the federal agents searching for her, manage to brown her skin and her hair. They sequester her under an assumed name in a house held by an old black woman, near Norfolk, which turns out to be a house of prostitution. Slowly, Alice adapts herself to this surprising life amidst the black culture of the time period, completely new for her; it should be noted that at no point in the book is the young Alice made to participate in prostitution, and in fact Alice only has a vague idea of what goes on in behind closed doors in the house. She eventually discovers... less