The Accidental

A finalist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize, The Accidental is the virtuoso new novel by the singularly gifted Ali Smith. In a novel at once profound, playful, and exhilaratingly inventive, she transfixes us with a portrait of a family unraveled by a mysterious visitor. Amber -- thirtysomething and barefoot -- shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. She talks her way in. She tells nothing but lies. She stays for dinner. Eve, the author of a best-selling series of biographical reconstructions, thinks Amber is a student with whom her husband is sleeping. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down. Daughter Astrid, age twelve, thinks she's her mother's friend. Son Magnus, age seventeen, thinks she's an angel. As Amber insinuates herself into the family, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives through the searing lens of her perceptions. When Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not from their profoundly altered lives. Ali Smith is the author of six works of fiction, including the novel Hotel World, which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize. Her story collections include Free Love and The Whole Story and Other Stories. Born in Inverness, Scotland, Smith now lives in Cambridge, England.