Alice B. Toklas Is Missing

By: Robert Archambeau

Narrated by: Allyson Voller

Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Jazz-age Paris was the center of the artistic and literary world, and the center of the center was Gertrude Stein's salon, where the famous and aspiring creative talents gathered to gawk at Stein's Picassos and vie for status. Young Midwesterner Ida Caine arrives in Paris with her husband Teddy, a would-be Hemingway who thinks he can adventure first and write later. When Teddy falls in with the Stein set, he brings Ida to the salon, where she is shunted into a corner with the wives of famous men. She burns with resentment and wonders if she can ever develop into a real artist herself. A few days later, Gertrude Stein's partner Alice B. Toklas vanishes. Stein calls upon Teddy to investigate. Soon after, he vanishes. Forced to seek out her missing husband, Ida follows his trail through a milieu including strange Surrealist rituals, Tarot card readings, and the catacombs beneath the city. She falls in with a young American poet, T. S. Eliot. An unlikely passion grows while they seek answers to the shocking disappearances.

©2023 Robert Archambeau (P)2023 Tantor

A well spun tale that makes the people and places come alive like they never did in school.

Something for everyone! Alice and malice, history and mystery, surreal and genteel, finance and romance, canoodling and doodling, strangers and dangers, requitment and excitement. Big fun.

An Absolute Delight

You know when you discover a book that puts you in a great mood because it's so witty and fun and original that you try not to listen all in one gulp but it's hard to help yourself? — Alice B. Toklas Is Missing is that book.

Archambeau writes with the heart of a lover, and his immersion in the brilliant chaos of arts and politics that was Jazz-age Paris make this novel a joy. We follow the journey of Ida, a young Midwestern painter who strives to find her identity as a woman and an artist, and with her we meet a fascinating cast of characters on their way to becoming the most famous creative names of the era. (You also discover some fun tidbits about these writers and artists: for example, T.S. Eliot was
a cheese fanatic!)

The plot launches with the shocking disappearance of Alice, Gertrude Stein's lover and hostess of Stein's arts salon. Ida's feckless husband Teddy claims to be a detective and promises Stein he will find Alice — but soon he vanishes as well, and Ida is left to pursue the deepening mystery with the help of American poet Tom Eliot. From the headquarters of the Surrealists to the bookstore Shakespeare & Company to the catacombs under Paris, they search for answers and help uncover a terrifying plot that goes far beyond the disappearance of one woman.

These explorations come to a very satisfying conclusion, but with this wonderful setting and cast of characters, here's hoping that a sequel comes out soon. I'm looking forward to more encounters with artists, to Ida progressing in her career and romance, and to seeing what happens next to the book's cads, villains and nogoodniks (looking at you, Teddy!)