What Alice Forgot characters

Appears from the start

A thirty-nine-year-old Sydney mother who hits her head during a spin class and wakes believing she is twenty-nine, newly married, and pregnant with her first child. The missing decade has left her facing three children she does not remember, a changed family, and a marriage close to divorce. Her warmer younger outlook often conflicts with evidence that she had become highly driven and controlling.

First appears in chapter 2

Alice's husband, whom she remembers as the affectionate newlywed eagerly preparing for their first baby. In the present he is separated from her and involved in a bitter custody dispute. Alice cannot reconcile his anger with the man she believes she saw only the day before.

First appears in chapter 2

Alice's older sister, once her closest confidante. Elisabeth has endured repeated fertility treatment and losses with her husband Ben, while her relationship with Alice has become distant for reasons Alice cannot remember. Her written reflections provide another account of the family's difficult decade.

First appears in chapter 5

Elisabeth's patient husband. He shares the strain of their long effort to become parents and tries to support her as treatment, grief, and uncertainty reshape their life together.

First appears in chapter 6

Alice and Nick's eldest child. Madison is approaching adolescence and has a tense, guarded relationship with her mother. She is old enough to understand the separation and to test whether Alice's changed behavior can be trusted.

First appears in chapter 6

Alice and Nick's son, one of the three children Alice has no memory of raising. His routines and loyalties reflect a family already accustomed to moving between separated parents.

First appears in chapter 6

Alice and Nick's youngest child. Olivia's presence makes Alice's missing decade tangible: Alice remembers expecting a first baby but is now meeting the third child of her marriage.

First appears in chapter 4

Alice and Elisabeth's mother. In the decade Alice cannot remember, Barb has become energetic, socially busy, and remarried, another transformation that makes the present feel unfamiliar to Alice.

First appears in chapter 9

The school principal and Alice's present-day romantic companion. He knows the competent, separated version of Alice, not the younger-minded woman who wakes after the accident still in love with Nick.

First appears in chapter 12

Alice's close friend from the missing decade. Gina's forceful personality and influence were woven into Alice's social life, fitness, and changing marriage. Her absence in the present is one of the painful facts Alice gradually has to understand.

First appears in chapter 3

An older family friend who writes candid letters about love, age, and loneliness. Her perspective forms a quieter counterpoint to Alice's amnesia and Elisabeth's struggle to imagine a different future.