Paperback, 306 pages
English language
Published April 8, 2007 by Anchor Books.
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 see their lives (and their life together) in a new light. Smith's exhilarating facility with language, her narrative freedom, her chromatic wordplay propel the novel to its startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion.
Ali Smith's acclaimed novel not only won the prestigious Whitbread Award but was also a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
(back cover)
A Super-TOB comment said it best: "September 2020 was not the right time for me to read The Accidental. I can appreciate what Ali Smith was trying to do, but my brain needs more plot and less introspection right now."
This was a weird book. Not that is wasn't enjoyable because it was. But what makes it weird is the reader is at a loss as to if the character of Amber was malevolent or benevolent. Were the characters that encountered Amber's unique form of "friendship" better off by knowing her? Who was Amber? Where did she come from, where did she go? Was her visit premeditated? All these questions are left ultimately to the imagination of the reader. And what about that ending? What was that all about?
