Elisabeth is struggling with his condition, while also navigating England’s political and cultural landscape after the Brexit vote. In the present narrative, which takes place in England in 2016, Daniel is in a coma and contemplating life and death in a poetic, out-of-body purgatory-like state. The novel’s chronology jumps around, giving the reader insight into Daniel and Elisabeth’s unusual friendship during Elisabeth’s childhood, as well as their separate lives decades later. Smith gives us a lot to chew on, but while many aspects of the novel go down smoothly, others get stuck in your mental molars only to be found weeks later, just as bothersome as they were when you first tried to digest them.Īutumn tells the story of Elisabeth, a young academic, and Daniel, her elderly neighbor from childhood. But some choices she makes fall short, or maybe don’t go as far as they need to –they result in the reader wondering, for example, why we just spent fifteen or so pages on an infuriating trip to the Post Office for a passport. In Autumn, Smith embarks on a path that proves challenging-as paths dealing with today’s muddled political landscape unequivocally are-and her results are often staggering. And those are just the major plot players. The novel, the first in a seasonally inspired series of four, takes on the perplexity of post-Brexit England, constructs a refreshing intellectual relationship between a young girl and her elderly neighbor, and poetically ponders the complexities of death, nature and memory. Autumn by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, 2016) Reviewed by Brenna McPeekĪli Smith’s multi-faceted novel Autumn tries to do many things-things that, when listed out, seemingly couldn’t (and maybe shouldn’t) all fit into one novel.

Daniel gluck ali smith