The Accidental
Ali Smith, Jeff Woodman (Read by), Simon Prebble (Read by), Stina Nielsen (Read by), Heather O'NeillBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Synopsis
Barefoot, thirty-something Amber shows up at the door of a Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer, insinuating herself into their family. Dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives under the searing lens of Amber’s perceptions. When the mother Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not—as they find when they return home to London—from their profoundly altered lives. Fearlessly intelligent, disarmingly playful, THE ACCIDENTAL is a Joycean tour-de-force of literary improvisation that explores the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the transformative power of storytelling.
Original material © 2006 Elisabeth Hyde Recorded by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
THe Washington Post - Jeff Turrentine
In winning the prestigious Whitbread, the Scottish-born, 43-year-old Smith beat out the likes of Salman Rushdie and Nick Hornby. Good for the judges. Smith is a dazzling talent, fearlessly lassoing different styles and ideas and playfully manipulating them. Though The Accidental is not a conventionally funny novel, readers may find themselves laughing -- in surprise and delight -- at the way Smith takes a literary trope and riffs on it until she's turned it inside out, the way a great jazz musician might. (When Amber obliquely tells the story of her childhood through the recitation of scenes from classic movies, the tour-de-force passage gets at the unique symbology of cinema in a way that eludes even our most erudite film critics.)