How Could You?

Question:

I read Intensely Alice right away when it came out. I loved it, as I love all your Alice books. What i want to know is; How could you? How can you just go and kill one of my favourite characters throughout the series. I was literally sobbing the whole time I was reading. I cried for an hour, and I was depressed for at least a week. How do you just kill off someone who you have talked about, wrote about, practically known, for so long? I know readers become close to the characters in books they read, and authors get even closer. Wasn’t it hard to make —— die for no apparent reason? To build him up like that, just to let him fall? To write about the pain and sadness of it all? i  wish you hadn’t done it, I’m really going to miss reading about him.

Phyllis replied:

I know, I know.  I cried too.  But the Alice series is about real life, right?  And sometimes this happens to someone we feel close to, someone we even love, and there’s no reason, no fairness, no justice.   I think readers can sympathize more with Alice when she questions her faith, knowing how much this friend meant to her.