Kuipers, Alice 1979-

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Kuipers, Alice 1979-

PERSONAL:

Born 1979, in London, England. Education: Manchester Metropolitan University, graduated.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

CAREER:

Author.

WRITINGS:

Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes between a Mother and Daughter (novel), Harper (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Born in London, England, Alice Kuipers settled in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, where she has been slowly building a writing career. Her first efforts included the unpublished novels Repeat, Aquaplane, and Always Present, the last one being about incest. "I think lots of first time writers have a book about incest in them," she observed wryly in a Thin Air Web site interview with Daria Salamon. In addition to these unsuccessful first attempts—the author called Repeat a "really awful" initial effort—she also completed two short-story collections, "both of which I like for different reasons," although neither of these has been published. Kuipers at last hit the mark with Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes between a Mother and Daughter, which was released in 2007.

Life on the Refrigerator Door is about a mother-daughter relationship. Claire is a fifteen-year-old whose mother is a very busy, divorced obstetrician. Because of their—especially Mom's—hectic schedules, the two main characters rarely see each other, and so they communicate largely by leaving notes on the refrigerator door. Kuipers uses the device of telling her story entirely from the text that is written in these notes. Although the notes are cursory, the reader is easily able to follow events over the course of a year. Kuipers describes how Claire often has to shop and cook for herself while her mother is away at work; mother and daughter argue about Claire's on again, off again boyfriend, Michael, and their fighting about him leads Claire to move in with her father temporarily. Later notes reveal that Claire's mother has found a lump in her breast, and this later is found to be cancerous. She undergoes chemotherapy, and a range of emotions engulfs mother and daughter as they deal with anger and fear. In the end, Mom dies from her disease, and the last notes on the refrigerator are from Claire, expressing her love for her mother.

While some reviewers of the novel found the narrative technique intriguing, others pointed out flaws. The question arose, for example, as to why a doctor would not have a cell phone or pager with her in order to communicate not only with her office but with her daughter. Instead, she resorts to low-tech post-it notes. Janice Harayda, writing on the One-Minute Book Reviews Web site, noted that Life on the Refrigerator Door is more like a children's book than an adult book, and remarked that she ran the text through a Microsoft readability program to find out that the reading level was measured to be at the second grade. Harayda declared the novel to be "dumber than Mitch Albom's For One More Day," though she called the note technique "modestly clever." A Kirkus Reviews contributor considered the character Claire to be "too good to be true." Although the young teen sometimes complains about wanting money, for the most part she is "independent yet loving and responsible." The reviewer commented that the debut "makes for an easy read for those looking for sad-lite."

Other reviewers received Life on the Refrigerator Door more positively. A Publishers Weekly writer called it a "haunting debut." "Bittersweet, funny and achingly real," the novel was praised by this reviewer for its important message that time can run out quickly and that we should value the loved ones in our lives. Caitlyn Pilkington, writing on ButYouDontLookSick.com, praised the characterizations in the novel, adding: "Kuipers takes petty teenage issues, along side intense grown-up situations, and places the two together, creating a memorable novel about coming of age and family ties."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bookseller, January 19, 2007, "Yann Martel's Partner Alice Kuipers Signs with Pan Mac," p. 7.

Chatelaine, October, 2007, Rebecca Caldwell, "Yann Martel and Alice Kuipers: The Booker Prize—Winning Author of Life of Pi and His Novelist Partner Share the Story of Their Love—Post-It Notes and Car Accidents Included," p. 67.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007, review of Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes between a Mother and Daughter.

Publishers Weekly, July 16, 2007, review of Life on the Refrigerator Door, p. 143.