I mostly read it a handful of pages at a time and didn't really get into the flow of it. Was it as good as everyone said it was? Possibly, but it didn't really do it for me. When Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not-they discover when they return home to London-from their profoundly altered lives.įearlessly intelligent and written with an irresistible blend of lyricism and whimsy, The Accidental is a tour de force of literary improvisation that explores the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the transformative power of storytelling.This book has turned up in every list of recommended books I've come across in the last few years, eventually I had to get around to reading it. Instead, dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives through the searing lens of Amber’s perceptions. Son Magnus, age seventeen, thinks she’s an angel.Īs Amber insinuates herself into the family, the questions of who she is and how she’s come to be there drop away.

Daughter Astrid, age twelve, thinks she’s her mother’s friend. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down. She stays for dinner.Įve Smart, the author of a best-selling series of biographical reconstructions, thinks Amber is a student with whom her husband, Michael, is sleeping. Jeanette Winterson has praised her for her “style, ideas, and punch.” Here, in a novel at once profound, playful, and exhilaratingly inventive, she transfixes us with a portrait of a family unraveled by a mysterious visitor.Īmber-thirtysomething and barefoot-shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer.

Jonathan Safran Foer has called her writing “thrilling.” Winner of the Whitbread Award for best novel and a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, The Accidental is the virtuoso new novel by the singularly gifted Ali Smith.

The Accidental by Ali Smith