The Accidental
by Smith, Ali
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good+, Not Price Clipped
- ISBN 10
- 0375422250
- ISBN 13
- 9780375422256
- Seller
-
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Winner of the Whitbread Award for best novel and a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, The Accidental is the virtuoso new novel by the singularly gifted Ali Smith. Jonathan Safran Foer has called her writing "thrilling." Jeanette Winterson has praised her for her "style, ideas, and punch." Here, in a novel at once profound, playful, and exhilaratingly inventive, she transfixes us with a portrait of a family unraveled by a mysterious visitor.Amber--thirtysomething and barefoot--shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. She talks her way in. She tells nothing but lies. She stays for dinner.Eve Smart, the author of a best-selling series of biographical reconstructions, thinks Amber is a student with whom her husband, Michael, is sleeping. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down. Daughter Astrid, age twelve, thinks she's her mother's friend. Son Magnus, age seventeen, thinks she's an angel.As Amber insinuates herself into the family, the questions of who she is and how she's come to be there drop away. Instead, dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives through the searing lens of Amber's perceptions. When Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not--they discover when they return home to London--from their profoundly altered lives.Fearlessly intelligent and written with an irresistible blend of lyricism and whimsy, The Accidental is a tour de force of literary improvisation that explores the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the transformative power of storytelling.From the Hardcover edition.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Hourglass Books (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 003008
- Title
- The Accidental
- Author
- Smith, Ali
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good+, Not Price Clipped
- Edition
- American First
- ISBN 10
- 0375422250
- ISBN 13
- 9780375422256
- Publisher
- Pantheon Books
- Place of Publication
- New York, New York
- Date Published
- 2006
- Keywords
- British Fiction
Terms of Sale
Hourglass Books
About the Seller
Hourglass Books
About Hourglass Books
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Brodart
- Generally used to refer to a clear plastic cover that is sometimes added to the dustjacket or outside covering of a book. The...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Number Line
- A series of numbers appearing on the copyright page of a book, where the lowest number generally indicates the printing of that...
- Title Page
- A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...