Winter

A complicated, super interesting book, telling lots of little stories. The stories move around in time, though mostly set over the Christmas holiday of 2016. There are four main, charming / difficult characters... two sisters who haven’t talked in many years, one son and his pretend girlfriend. The book is all their stories and how they come together, how they fall apart, and how they connect. The stories are about time, madness, aging, politics, family, love, art, lies, and maybe finding your true self.At one point Ali Smith has one character say, “I think you could maybe talk about anything [...]. There’s nothing you wouldn’t make interesting. Even I’m interesting when you talk about me,” which pretty much nails exactly how I feel about the whole book.

Smith is doing a tetraology and Fall was one of my favorites of last fall and I thought this is going to be hard to equal. But Winter I reread as soon as I finished. Among many other delights, this is the best dysfunctional family Christmas novel ever

I can only quote Samuel Johnson here:“One cannot always find the reason for which the world has sometimes conspired to squander praise.”

First half of book hard to follow. Challenging intellectually. Brilliant writing.

Ali Smith breaks lots of rules but I find the result compelling in this story of human connection. A Barbara Hepworth statue becomes a pivotal plot point in this highly unusual family. Smith's style is both playful and profound.