Book description
The Accidental is Ali Smith's sparkling 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
Ali Smith is the author of novels Girl Meets Boy,
Like, The Accidenta
l, Hotel World and There but for the. She has
published the short story collections The First Person and Other
Stories, Free Love and Other Stories, Other Stories and Other
Stories and The Whole Story and Other Stories. She has been
twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, twice nominated for the
Orange Prize and won the Whitbread Novel of the Year in 2005.
Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and lives in Cambridge. She
is the author of Free Love, Like, Other Stories and Other Stories, Hotel
World and The Whole Story and Other Stories.
