It was the summer the worm grew out of Alice’s stomach.  It was my job to worry it out, bit by bit.  Every day I twirled a little bit more around a slender, bleached stick that the doctor had given to our mother.  Alice cried every night as I coaxed out the oily crawler, more than two feet in all, from her overburdened intestine. Alice was nine that summer. I was twelve.

So begins the darkly comic story of Joel and Alice Holding, a brother and sister with a big problem on their hands.

Alice is discovering her rebellious side; she wants to explore the world and thinks she’s equal to any situation. Joel feels responsible for keeping her safe – whether she likes it or not.  Their parents are too self-absorbed to take much of an interest.

On a family vacation in Africa, Alice drinks a tiny bit of contaminated water and the parasite that lives there. After the Holdings return home, a Guinea worm emerges through the skin just below Alice’s belly button. Their parents, already overwhelmed by the tasks of parenthood, are completely undone by Alice’s repugnant care, and hand the job over to Joel.

Over the oppressively hot summer, Joel and Alice are left to their own devices. Their mother convinces them to keep the worm a secret out of embarrassment for what people might think, and their task forces Alice and Joel into an awkward and disturbing intimacy. The stress on their relationship sets the kids on a collision course.

A deeply quirky tragicomedy, ALICE explores family dysfunction, the precarious bonds between siblings, and the trouble that can happen when parents don’t mind their children.