The Accidental - Softcover

Smith, Ali

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143566504 ISBN 13: 9780143566502

Publisher: Penguin, 2011

Synopsis

The Accidental is Ali Smith's dazzling novel about a family holiday and a stranger who upends it.

Arresting and wonderful, The Accidental pans in on the Norfolk holiday home of the Smart family one hot summer. There a beguiling stranger called Amber appears at the door bearing all sorts of unexpected gifts, trampling over family boundaries and sending each of the Smarts scurrying from the dark into the light.

A novel about the ways that seemingly chance encounters irrevocably transform our understanding of ourselves,The Accidental explores the nature of truth, the role of fate and the power of storytelling.

'A beguiling page-turner. . . a brilliant creation. To read The Accidental is to be excited from first to last'Independent

'Joyous, a shot across the bows. . . writing as rapture, as giddy delight' The Times

'Brilliant and engaging, frequently hilarious. . . Smith makes one look at the world afresh' Sunday Telegraph

About this title

Review:

"Astonishing. . . . Vivid and affecting. . . . Wonderfully supple, jazzy." -"The New York Times" "Persistently sparkling pages...of startling and clarifying emotional power. . . . It casts a spell." --"The Atlantic Monthly" "Completely captivating. . . . Thoroughly charming and melodic. . . .Devilishly lovely." --"The Boston Globe" "Beautifully executed. . . . A few pages [in] and you begin to remember how much fun it is to put yourself in the hands of a skilled, majestically confident writer. . . . Delightful." --"The New York Observer" "Brims with wit, humor, and energy." --"The Christian Science Monitor"

About the Author:

Ali Smith is the author of Free Love and Other Stories, Like, Other Stories and Other Stories, Hotel World, The Whole Story and Other Stories, The Accidental, Girl Meets Boy, The First Person and Other Stories, There but for the, Artful, How to be both, Public library and other stories and Autumn. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize. How to be both won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Folio Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0143566504
• ISBN 13: 9780143566502
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320