All of Mary Alice Monroe’s Books!
Who is Mary Alice Monroe?
Born in 1951, Marie Alice Monroe is a novelist and environmental conversationalist who studied journalism before married in 1972 Markus Kruesi, a child psychiatrist. Following their honeymoon in Japan, Marie Alice Monroe was inspired to study Asian culture and became bilingual in Japanese, and earned her master’s degree.
Before becoming an author, Mary Alice Monroe worked as an assistant to the general editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, as a teacher, and helped establish a program to teach English as a second language to southeast Asian refugees. In 1980, she first co-wrote a non-fiction book, Crossroads to Literacy, which served as a guide to help immigrants acclimate to life in the United States.
It’s only in 1995 that Monroe began writing her first fiction novel. As she was confined to bed during the last months of her third pregnancy, she took up the pen and wrote The Long Road Home. Her first novels are all about women overcoming tragedy and developing interpersonal relationships.
Her writings evolved after her family relocated to the Isle of Palms and shifted to deal with environmental issues, as seen in The Beach House (2002), where Monroe wrote about a mother-daughter relationship and the conservationist’s efforts to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtles.
Mary Alice Monroe has received numerous awards, including the 2014 South Carolina Award for Literary Excellence. Nearly eight million copies of her books have been published worldwide.
Read More »Mary Alice Monroe Books in Order (Beach House, The Islanders, Lowcountry Summer)
