ALI SMITHis the author of eight previous works of fiction, including the novel Hotel World, which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award, and The Accidental, which won the Whitbread Award and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her story collections include Free Love, which won a Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award, and The Whole Story and Other Stories. Born in Inverness, Scotland, Smith lives in Cambridge, England.
"A Washington Post Notable Book of 2011
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2011
There but for the is a brilliant title for a brilliant novel. Ali
Smith invents new forms of fiction in the interstices between parts
of a sentence commenting "but the thing I particularly like about
the word but is that it always takes you off to the side " The
story is about a man who leaves a tedious dinner party, locks
himself into a bedroom and refuses to leave. His hostess calls in
the press and he becomes a cause celebre. He is put together in a
series of stories from different, tangential points of view. The
novel is both funny and moving it succeeds because of Smith's
extraordinary skill with ordinary language. A.S. Byatt, The
Guardian (London), Best Books of 2011
To read a book by Ali Smith is to become an unabashed fan of her
clever wordplay, her inventive prose, her concern for the ethical
collapse of the lives of ordinary people. . . . As wickedly
ingenious a novel as is likely to be found this season. . . .
Exhilarating. . . . At a time when technology is separating us,
changing our language and our histories, we must listen to Ali
Smith. We must heed her cautionary comments on the human need to be
individuals and the human need for connection. Otherwise, There but
for the. Anniston Star
Ali Smith s clever, by turns whimsical and subtly wrenching fifth
novel, There But For The, is another book that sends you back to
the beginning once you ve reached the end, both to connect the dots
of her intricately structured story and to marvel at what she has
pulled off. . . . With her penchant for wordplay on full display,
the author of The Accidental switches between the perspectives of
four people whose lives have been peripherally touched by her
gentle shut-in, a man who, like J.D. Salinger s Seymour Glass, has
perhaps too much heart to survive comfortably in a hard world.
These appealing characters include a preternaturally articulate
9-year-old, one of literature s most beguiling little sages since
Salinger s Esme. Heller McAplin, NPR Five 2011 Books That Stay With
You
Quirky, intricately put together. . . . A book about loss and
retention: about what we forget and what we remember, about the
people who pass through our lives and what bits of them cling to
our consciousness. . . . Ms. Smith is brilliant at leaving things
out and forcing the reader to make connections, so that, for
example, the remaining words of the title phrase ( grace of God go
I ) go without saying. . . . Language here also proves itself to be
dense and referential, capable of making unexpected connections and
of imprinting itself feelingly on the mind in a phrase, a rhyme, a
snatch of song lyric. Charles McGrath, The New York Times
Those who have read [Smith s] previous novels (including The
Accidental and Hotel World) will tell you that she s a rare talent,
and in There but for the she stretches that talent in ways you d
never have imagined. You can almost feel Smith flexing her writerly
muscles as you turn the pages. From the enigmatic opening onwards,
it s clear that this won t be your typical novel, and Ali Smith isn
t your typical wrier. . . . As challenging as it is confounding,
weaving four separate stories around the central spindle of Miles
Garth. . . . It s the kind of philosophical tour de force that we
re more used to seeing from the likes of Paul Auster, but in Ali
Smith s hands it also acquires a humanity and a tenderness that
feel utterly new. Smith s love of language shines through too, as
she mixes local vernacular with higher registers, creating a
vibrant patchwork of words that knits together her themes and ideas
in unique fashion. . . . A fascinating read, even if you don t want
to delve into its meta-narrative, and Smith has such a way with
words that even the most mundane act can become poetry in her
hands. Like Miles Garth himself, her invisible hand creates ripples
that will mesmerize and enthrall you from start to finish. Culture
Mob
A beguiling ode to human connection shot through with existential
wonder and virtuosic wordplay. If you fell for Jennifer Egan s A
Visit From the Goon Squad, you ll appreciate Smith s formal twists
and turns and there s more where There came from. Time Magazine
It is with this word play, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm that Smith
proves herself one of the cleverist a British author at the top of
her game who combines eccentricity and originality in equal
measure. And, as I discovered when I heard her reading from the
opening pages last week with a cadence rarely found in a fiction
writer, There but for the is a story quite literally crying out to
be heard. Here we have a novel, and a novelist, delighting in the
joy of language itself. Lucy Scholes, Daily Beast
Ambitious, rambunctious, and poetic. . . . [Smith] makes use of
what have become her trademarks a narrative trickiness in which any
given story may be incomplete, and a certain linguistic
playfulness, which in this case includes puns, Lewis Carroll-like
absurdist banter, and conversations that read like transcripts, a
trick that has the interesting effect of making them sound familiar
and odd at the same time. . . . Smith is good at pulling a
surprise, especially a tragic one, out of nowhere, to get you in
the gut. . . . Smith s people sound real when they talk, and so do
the thoughts as they flow through their heads. . . . Contains all
the real, solid stuff of a novel. It satisfies, it enlightens, and
there s a surge of wonderment and poignancy beneath the narrative
that continually springs up. Katie Heagele, Philadelphia
Inquirer
Exceedingly clever and subtly wrenching. . . . Structurally, this
novel is a marvel. Smith has interwoven multiple points of view
before, but this time her shifts in perspective are just
disorienting enough to keep readers on their toes. And she slyly
slips in significant information, at times before we re ready to
understand its full import, an approach that makes the eventual aha
moments especially satisfying. There but for the packs an emotional
wallop in part because it engages us to read more actively. Smith
prompts readers not just to connect the dots of her story but to
assemble the pieces of her title and supply the implied words:
grace of God go I. Heller McAlpin, The Washington Post
Ali Smith s weird and wonderful puzzle of a fifth novel is
ostensibly about a dinner-party guest who locks himself in a spare
bedroom and refuses to come out, inadvertently sparking a media
frenzy. But the book packed with jokes and random facts is really
about small stuff like life and death and the meaning of human
existence, all told with sharp humor and real insight. The novel
itself is a riddle with no solution, which is exactly the point:
When you reluctantly come to the end, you can t help going back to
the beginning, trying to unravel this beautifully elusive book s
mysterious spell. A-, Entertainment Weekly
Masterful. . . . Rapidly gains momentum, turning a simple tale into
something ambitious and grounded. . . . As much as There But For
The is about the connection and memory in a narrative sense, its
love of language is even more impressive. Smith uses a constant
internal monologue to depict her characters, without external
narration, and they jump from word to word, pun to pun, or in one
case, conversation with the imagined dead to conversation with the
living. The wordplay is often a delight on its own, but Smith also
uses it to great effect for revelations in the story. The A.V.
Club
A marvel of a novel, sweeping in purpose (what is the meaning of
life, of history, of our presence or our absence) and magnetic in
both the presentation of its cast and characters and the unfolding
of its deceptively simple plot. . . . The writing in There But For
The is lovely, the imagery sharp and moving, and the flow
unstoppable. . . . I simply could not put this book down, other
than to place it on my lap while I worked out the pieces of the
puzzle. . . . Smith is also unabashedly aware and even proud of the
quirks and thrills of the human mind, of how we can make up songs
and puns and jokes, create connections out of chance meetings, and
care, really really care, about both our history and our future.
Nina Sankovitch, Huffington Post
Quirky. . . . As intriguing and clever as its title.
Counterpunch
Ali Smith loves words. She loves playing with them, calling
attention to them, listening to them as if they were members of a
vast extended family, each precious in its own right and she their
fair-minded parent, determined not to play favorites. She can give
the word but such a star turn that you wonder why you d ever taken
it for granted. Smith s love of language lights up all her books. .
. . Smith s wordplay never comes at the expense of the many other
facets in her complicated creations characters, places, ideas. . .
. . A witty, provocative urban fable. . . . If you enjoy
surprising, often comic insights into contemporary life, she s
someone to relish. . . . When the narrative turns to the elderly
May, Smith s expansive humanism returns in a wonderful, complex
account of this vibrant character, one that touches on aging,
family ties, death and the intimate. . . . [A] lively, moving
narrative. . . . . All the likable characters in There but for the
enjoy a good verbal game, most happily with someone else. It is as
though playing with language is what enables them to make their way
through a complicated world. It s a knack that might also be picked
up, most enjoyably, by reading Ali Smith. Sylvia Brownrigg, The New
York Times Book Review
Sophisticated, playful. . . . Exhilarating. . . . In her
astonishing, light look at the human need for separation for a
closed door and its counterpoint, the need for connections, Smith
blasts a window open in our heads. The Plain Dealer "British author
Ali Smith has never been what you d call a conventional novelist.
Whether she is using a hotel as a metaphor for the various stages
of life, examining the impact of uninvited guests or re-envisioning
a classic Greek myth, Smith has proved she isn t afraid of taking
chances or pushing boundaries. Smith s novels tend to begin with a
slightly outlandish but irresistibly intriguing premise. . . .
Leave it to Smith to take a seemingly simple and straightforward
(and absurd!) idea and transform it into anything but. . . . This
is a novel that is deeply cerebral and is guaranteed to get your
synapses firing. For those who relish a bit of an enigma and are
looking for something extraordinary when it comes to fiction, There
But For The delivers in spades." Bookpage
"Exhilirating." Marie Claire
"Like several recent novels, notably Jennifer Egan s A Visit from
the Goon Squad, Elizabeth Strout s Olive Kitteridge, and Tom
Rachman s The Imperfectionists, this work is a collection of
interlocking stories organized around a single theme and featuring
multiple characters. . . . Smith deftly satirizes our
media-saturated environment, using an oddball cast of characters to
point out the difficulty we have in making genuine human
connections and demonstrating how beautiful and rare it is when we
actually succeed. The passage of time is a constant underlying
preoccupation as well, as befits the setting home of the Royal
Observatory, which established Greenwich Mean Time. . . . This is a
delightful, beautifully written, touching novel that will strongly
appeal to lovers of language and wordplay." Library Journal
"With its shifting points of view, Smith (The First Person: and
Other Stories, 2009, etc.) displays a virtuoso gift for channeling
her character's inner voices. Happily, the book manages to wear its
profundity lightly. . . . [An] offbeat exploration of the human
need to connect with others." Kirkus Reviews
"This startling lark from Smith (The Accidental) is so much more
than the sum of its parts. Both breezy and devastating, the novel
radiates from its whimsical center: Miles Garth, a dinner party
guest, decides to leave the world behind and lock himself in his
hostess s spare room, refusing to come out and communicating only
by note. Four charmers with tenuous links to Miles, nicknamed Milo
by the growing crowd camped outside the suburban Greenwich London
house, narrate the proceedings: Anna, a girl who knew Miles briefly
in the past; Mark, a melancholy gay man who Miles met watching
Shakespeare at the Old Vic; May Young, an elderly woman who Miles
helped grieve her daughter s death; and the wonderful,
"preternaturally articulate" Brooke, arguably the cleverest
10-year-old in contemporary literature. Together, they create a
portrait not so much of Miles because none of them really knows him
but of the zeitgeist of their society. In a lovely departure, and
in spite of the fact that there is not one ordinary, carefree
character in this whole tale, all parents are literate, loving, and
tolerant: though Mark is exhausted and sad, his famous mum speaks
to him, in verse no less, from beyond the grave; though May is
trapped in dementia, she was a kind mother to her ill-fated
daughter; and though Brooke is clearly plagued by attention deficit
disorder and is misunderstood and disliked at school, her parents
love her dearly. This fine, unusual novel is sweet and melancholy,
indulgent of language and of the fragile oddballs who so relish in
it." Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)
There But For The will remind you what a joyful activity reading
truly is. Nobody writes with more panache. You learn so much from
an Ali Smith novel, you laugh so hard and are filled with such
intellectual and spiritual nourishment, and all you want to do when
you re finished is go read another one. Sigrid Nunez
In There But For The Ali Smith displays her usual fizz and
artistry. She always surprises, she never disappoints. Kate
Atkinson, author of Started Early, Took My Dog
A British literary phenom, Smith sets her third novel at the posh
London suburban home of the Lee family, who are throwing a dinner
party one night when guest Miles Garth goes upstairs and locks
himself in a room. While his host, her daughter, an old school
friend, and the Lees neighbor all try to coax him out, he
communicates only via notes passed out under the door, resulting in
a game of words as engaging for the reader as for Miles unwitting
hosts. The Millions, Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2011
Book Preview
"By times amusing, engaging and edifying, it is punctuated with
Smith s arid observational wit, her ability to dissect language, to
turn it inside out and upside down." The Irish Independent
"A tribute to persistent literary, cultural and philosophical
leitmotifs. . . . Smith unleashes a quest on the nature and meaning
of time, memory, history, art, culture, civilisation, death, loss,
life and living with a scintillating satire on contemporary society
and a pilgrimage through popular culture." The Indian Express
A warm, playful, dazzlingly written modern fable . . . Memory,
nostalgia, the sense of growing older, of things passing, the
disappointments of adult life the themes are handled lightly, but
are built up, layer on layer, with cunning care. The increasing
shabbiness of modern life is a recurring motif, the internet not
least, which promises everything but everything isn't there, and
which ends only by offering a a whole new way of feeling lonely.
The Irish Independent
You could call Ali Smith s new novel, There But For The, a
tragicomedy . . . The fun comes in the form of Smith s satire of
the media . . . of new technology users and of upper-middle-class
snobbery . . . Though the locations shift and characters appear out
of nowhere, Smith agilely keeps the narrative together. Everything
connects even if the people can t. A must-read. Toronto NOW
A satire on the conflict between the bourgeois lifestyle of the
Lees and the anarchic goings-on of Miles and other lesser
characters. If you liked Smith s earlier fiction, you will know she
enjoys setting up a situation before chucking in a literary Molotov
cocktail then describing what happens. . . . A highly original
novel. The Sunday Express
The novel examines people s perceived and inner identities,
especially relating to their place in the world, and brims with
playful language exploring the meaning behind words and actions,
taking apart the middle-class pretensions that the characters are
trapped within. It s a strong offering that dissects the heart of
modern life. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Off-the-wall imagination and some scintillating wordplay . . . A
barbed satire on our times, the growing absence of opportunity for
quiet reflection and our inability to truly communicate with one
another in the age of the mobile phone and the internet. . . .
Smith s ear for natural dialogue from completely different social
milieus is unerringly accurate. Those who take the plunge ready to
go with the flow will not be disappointed. Daily Mail
A virtuoso piece of writing, both funny and gripping . . . Smith is
a writer with a rich array of conventional strengths . . . Her
prose responds to the world with loving attentiveness . . . One of
the great pleasures of her work is its harmonious mixture of pure
lyricism and straightforward demotic . . . Some of the best, or at
least the finest writing in There But For The has to do with the
effects on the mind of living in the Internet age. The Times
Literary Supplement
The fascination with language a central preoccupation in almost all
of Smith s stories is evident here . . . It is more than simple
word play. The semantic and structural disruption, starting with
the novel s unfinished title, reflects its anarchic intent to
disrupt the comfortably smug, middle-class sensibility personified
by Genevieve and her dinner party set, with their stultifying
prejudice and snobbery . . . Along with her cleverness and wordy
wit, there is a bewitching romanticism to Smith's world, where
people truly connect and leave tender imprints on each other. Both
she, and they, also tell stories-within-stories. The Independent
(London)
Stylish, witty, offbeat and consummately likable, Ali Smith has
perfected a narrative tone ideally suited to her wry, intelligent
fiction. Yet another of the talented Scottish writers, Smith is a
shrewd observer, loves facts, is playfully, if astutely, alert to
nuance, and never takes herself too seriously, which explains why
she can hold a reader with the lightest of touches . . . Ali Smith
. . . is always good company. Irish Times
"A playful yet erudite celebration of words. . . . Smith s prose is
not just supple, it s acrobatic: one minute providing crisp realism
cocky teenagers, unspoken homophobia, university bureaucracy the
next a hypnotic stream-of-consciousness. Smith can make anything
happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today.
. . . [Her] dizzying wordplay makes the real and surreal equally
stimulating." Lucy Beresford, The Daily Telegraph (London)
"You rarely get bombs or tornados or motorway pile-ups in Ali Smith
s books, but the results of inner turmoils within her characters
can often be just as devastating. In There But For The, nuances and
shades and intricacies stack on top of one another to reveal some
valuable truths about the way we live now. . . . At the core of the
book is a feeling that while our means of communications have
become more sophisticated, shinier and quicker, true connections
are harder to maintain. . . . Our physical and philosophical
breakdowns are sharply satirized in this almost mythical narrative
dreamed up by one of contemporary literature s most deft and astute
analysts of human nature. Another Booker nomination may well
await." Brian Donaldson, The List (UK)
"A winsome, compelling read. . . . Smith s version [of the English
dinner party] is a tour de force. . . . The prose is playful,
intelligent and witty." Lionel Shriver, Financial Times
"A seriously playful puzzle of a novel. . . . Whimsically
devastating. . . . Smith is repeatedly drawn to explorations of
language games, to the moment in which what we say slips free from
what we think we mean, where the generic becomes the particular,
where the identity of the speaker comes under scrutiny. . . .
Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly
affecting." Alex Clark, The Guardian (London)
"Smith fans will recognize familiar character tropes the
autobiographical free-spirited, savant child, the enigmatic
stranger, the talkative dead from Smith s earlier works and no
doubt delight in Smith s celebratory, sometimes Rabelaisian
wordplay. . . . She s on the money, in her satirical, at times
painfully acute, observations of haute bourgeois London life and
this reader delighted, too, in the vividly contrasting portrait of
the high-spirited, fearless, untrammeled Brooke. . . . Her ludic
delight in language and in the texture of ordinary lives are both
sublimely infectious. . . . Interactive and willfully democratic,
There But For The is an uncompromising and original 21st-century
novel. There s no ego here, just an invitation to join the fun. I
take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul." Melanie
McGrath, The Evening Standard (London)
"This is a thought-provoking and engaging book If there s any
justice it must be a contender for one of this year s literary
prizes." Daily Express
"Ali Smith s dazzling, spry novels and stories are fond of such
bizarre opening gambits, tested and stretched for their narrative
and thematic possibilities almost as a game, or a fictional
constraint: imagine if. . . . Figures of speech and verbal tics,
and wordplay that startles in the way that poetry does, attentive
to the minute ways words fall against each other. . . . There is
something deeply democratic about [the book s] interest in the
little words, conjunctions and prepositions, and how they change
the way we construe the world. . . . This is a novel deliberately
informed by song. . . . A very artful and thought-provoking book."
Lucy Daniel, The Sunday Telegraph (London)
"A book full of kindness and compassion . . . The painful realities
cleverly contrasted with surreal touches never fail to satisfy."
Time Out London
"A playfully serious, or seriously playful, novel full of wit and
pleasure. . . . The pleasures here are in the small moments, the
interest she takes in the tiniest words. . . . There are some
wonderful disquisitions on our cultural idiosyncrasies. . . .
Appealing and painful observations on the temporary permanence of
our lives." Sarah Churchwell, The Observer (London)"
In the middle of an English dinner party, Miles Garth excuses himself from the table, locks himself in the guest room, and refuses to leave. As the weeks and then months drag on, hostess Gen-portrayed by narrator Anne Flosnik as an afflicted damsel in distress-goes through Miles's address book to enlist friends, however remote, to coax the unwanted boarder out of his lair. The first rescue attempt is made by Anna-who met Miles decades earlier on a school trip-whom Flosnik deftly renders as a classy and good-natured Glaswegian, perplexed that Miles even remembered her. After Anna, Flosnik's performance declines: Mark-who met Miles in a theater-sounds much like the audio's other men, while the voice given to Brooke, the 10-year-old who makes a final attempt at extricating Miles, is too similar to those of the book's other children-all of them bright and high-pitched. Flosnik's narration is, however, well paced and entertaining, and this-coupled with Smith's playful language, rhymes, songs, and imaginative plot-will enchant listeners. A Pantheon hardcover. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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