There But For The - Hardcover

Smith, Ali

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375424091 ISBN 13: 9780375424090

Publisher: Pantheon Books, 2011

Synopsis

From the award-winning author of Hotel World and The Accidental, a dazzling, funny, and wonderfully exhilarating new novel.

At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs room, and refuses to leave. An eclectic group of neighbors and friends slowly gathers around the house, and Miles’s story is told from the points of view of four of them: Anna, a woman in her forties; Mark, a man in his sixties; May, a woman in her eighties; and a ten-year-old named Brooke. The thing is, none of these people knows Miles more than slightly. How much is it possible for us to know about a stranger? And what are the consequences of even the most casual, fleeting moments we share every day with one another?

Brilliantly audacious, disarmingly playful, and full of Smith’s trademark wit and puns,There but for the is a deft exploration of the human need for separation—from our pasts and from one another—and the redemptive possibilities for connection. It is a tour de force by one of our finest writers.

About this title

Review:

Whimsically devastating. Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting (Guardian)

Remarkable. A brilliant novel: funny, serious, always surprising, always true (The Times)

I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul (Evening Standard)

A playfully serious or seriously playful novel full of wit and pleasure. Wonderful (Observer)

Eccentric, adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read. The writing dances along (Literary Review)

Poignant, empathetic, funny. A book full of kindness and compassion (Time Out)

Fizzying, affectionate, sparkling. Smith presents her world view in words as fresh as lemons. A joyful read (Herald)

A tour de force (Lionel Shriver Financial Times)

A virtuoso piece of writing, both funny and gripping . . . Smith is a writer with a rich array of conventional strengths (Times Literary Supplement)

A must read (Toronto NOW)

About the Author:

ALI SMITH is the author of eight previous works of fiction, including the novelHotel World, which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award, andThe Accidental, which won the Whitbread Award and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her story collections includeFree Love, which won a Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award, andThe Whole Story and Other Stories. Born in Inverness, Scotland, Smith lives in Cambridge, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0375424091
• ISBN 13: 9780375424090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 236