Ali Smith: Accidental (2006, Penguin Books, Limited)
320 pages
English language
Published Oct. 8, 2006 by Penguin Books, Limited.
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.
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?
