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Art & Books Books

There But For The

THERE BUT FOR THE by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin), 356 pages, $34 cloth. Rating: NNNN


You could call Ali Smith’s new novel, There But For The, a tragicomedy. Mining some of her familiar themes – characters disrupting middle-class settings, the dead speaking to the living – she places at the centre of the plot the dinner guest Miles, who at the book’s beginning removes himself from the chi-chi party at the Lee residence, barricades himself in the host’s bedroom and refuses to leave for three months. That’s the sad part.

The fun comes in the form of Smith’s satire of the media (they descend on the Greenwich, UK, house in droves, creating legions of obsessed Miles fans who also can’t stay away, of course), of new technology users and of upper-middle-class snobbery. The book’s nub is a flashback to the dinner party itself, where the chattering classes blithely engage in reactionary and homophobic banter. No wonder Miles wants to leave.

Also in the mix is precocious 10-year-old neighbour Brooke, who delights in asking uncomfortable questions and, when she discovers the meaning of the word “pun,” has a field day creating them as the story unfolds. As you can see from the title, Smith is deep into wordplay. Anna, a woman who had a fleeting connection with Miles when she was a teenager, also appears, as does an elderly woman who lies dying in a retirement home.

Aside from Brooke, the best-developed character is Mark, who brought Miles to the party in the first place and who, though it occurred in his childhood, is still coping with his artist mother’s suicide. A section where the dinner guests discuss her work and her death when they think he’s not listening is a knockout.

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.

Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com

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