snackywombat's review
The Accidental by Ali Smith
With its rotating narrators and anti-linear plot, The Accidental seems at times purposefully dizzying and abstruse. But, while ambitious, the writing innovates the novel form in a couple of ways. There's a real prose-poemish feel and in fact one section devolves into about 10 pages of narrative poetry.
Added to that, the chapters pick up and leave off in odd parts and the plot can only be pieced together through the various voices. The strongest voice being, for me, that of Astrid, a persnickety 13-year-old who's very attached to her video camera and exhibits signs of OCD, but the other voices of her three family members carry through well. There's Magnus, Astrid's depressive but bright brother; Eve, the writer mother and lost soul; and Michael, the womanizing professor and unwilling step-father to Astrid and Magnus.
Besides their own problems, each narrates their account of Amber, a brash young woman that randomly shows up on the doorstep of the family's summer vacation house....more
Added to that, the chapters pick up and leave off in odd parts and the plot can only be pieced together through the various voices. The strongest voice being, for me, that of Astrid, a persnickety 13-year-old who's very attached to her video camera and exhibits signs of OCD, but the other voices of her three family members carry through well. There's Magnus, Astrid's depressive but bright brother; Eve, the writer mother and lost soul; and Michael, the womanizing professor and unwilling step-father to Astrid and Magnus.
Besides their own problems, each narrates their account of Amber, a brash young woman that randomly shows up on the doorstep of the family's summer vacation house....more
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