The Accidental

Ali Smith’s inventive portrayal of a family unravelled by a mysterious visitor. Who is Amber? And why has she joined the Smarts on holiday?The Smart family is spending the summer in Norfolk. Amber just arrived one day. Eve assumed she was Michael’s student, Michael thought she was a friend of Eve’s. Magnus thought she was an angel, sent to save him. Astrid thought that if Amber were a cartoon character, she would have been a superheroine, but also that she is definitely insane. The whole family is bewitched. And then Amber just doesn’t leave..."Into this psychological briar patch strolls Amber, a blonde, brazen Rorschach blot of a houseguest who will profoundly shake up each family member before wearing out her welcome. She arrives one day, unannounced and very much uninvited, and immediately makes herself at home ... Amber is flippant, caustic and conniving, traits that make her recognizably, albeit unattractively, human. But throughout The Accidental, up until the very last words, Smith drops subtle and tantalizing hints that Amber may in fact be a projection of the Smarts' damaged psyches, a shared delusion whose purpose is to rattle them out of their torpor and compel them to act ... 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." - Jeff Turrentine, The Washington PostShortlisted for the 2006 Women's Prize For FictionAli Smith is the author of several critically acclaimed and award-winning novels and short stories. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. The Accidental was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. How to be Both won the Bailey’s Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Autumn was shortlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize 2017 and Winter was shortlisted for the Orw The Accidental is the dizzyingly entertaining, wickedly humorous story of a mysterious stranger whose sudden appearance during a family's summer holiday transforms four variously unhappy people. Each of the Smarts'parents Eve and Michael, son Magnus, and the youngest, daughter Astrid'encounter Amber in his or her own solipsistic way, but somehow her presence allows them to se their lives (and their life together) in a new light. Smith's exhilarating facility with language, her narrative freedom, and her chromatic wordplay propel the novel to its startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion. Ali Smith's acclaimed novel won the prestigious Whitbread Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. From the Trade Paperback edition Filled with the bestselling, award-winning author's trademark wordplay and inventive storytelling, here is the dizzyingly entertaining, wickedly humorous story of a mysterious stranger whose sudden appearance during a family’s summer holiday transforms four variously unhappy people. Each of the Smarts — parents Eve and Michael, son Magnus, and the youngest, daughter Astrid — encounter Amber in his or her own solipsistic way, but somehow her presence allows them to see their lives (and their life together) in a new light. Smith’s narrative freedom and exhilarating facility with language propel the novel to its startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion. The Accidental is a 2005 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. It follows a middle-class English family who are visited by an uninvited guest, Amber, while they are on holiday in a small village in Norfolk. Amber's arrival has a profound effect on all the family members. Eventually she is cast out the house by the mother, Eve. But the consequences of her appearance continue even after the family has returned home to London. The novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the Man Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and it won the Whitbread Award. Talking her way into the Norfolk cottage that the Smart family is renting for the summer, Amber, an enigmatic con artist, insinuates herself into the lives of Eve, her husband Michael, and their children