Ali Smith writes very, very good novels, and very good ones and then this one. Autumn is, in my fanciful hierarchy of good, very, very, very good. Mark that as three ‘very’s’. It has gorgeous writing and a lyrical tone and pacing that wraps you up and whisks you away without you realizing it. Eventually you look up and realize you’ve been reading for an hour and it’s time to X whatever chore your life demands you do instead of reading. Continue reading
Category Archives: Fiction
Everybody’s Son: Half Novel, Half Explainer
I’m undecided about Thirty Umbrigar’s Everybody’s Son. On the one hand it tells the compelling story of the theft/adoption of an African-American boy by a uber-privileged white family; and in telling the story explores – pretty directly (okay, sometimes too directly) privilege. So yeah, that’s the other hand: the novel seems entirely unsure whether the reader will ‘get it’ and so spends altogether too much time telling the reader exactly what it’s about. Continue reading
Filed under American literature, Fiction
Exit West: This futuristic fairy tale will make you sad. And then you’ll forget it. Because feelings are for suckers.
Mohsin Hamid had an idea: a future where people could travel by walking through a door. And then he tried to write a novel – Exit West – around this idea with varying degrees of success. Continue reading
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction
Literary Vice 