Ali Smith's 'Companion Piece' comes on the heels of her seasonal quartet of newsy novels. Her work is the perfect mirror of our era's abrupt absurdity.
,” a new novel equally focused on present-day anxieties. Smith recently told the BBC that while writing the series, “I knew there was a wild book at the back of it waiting, which was connected but not connected.”
Sandy’s occupation is a familiar one for Smith. Her seasonal quartet shined a spotlight on several actual women artists, but in “Companion Piece,” it’s our central fictional heroine who creates. Sandy likes her chosen life, her “discipline,” as she tries to make her father understand. Her art grants her a purpose she doesn’t find in the companionship of others.
“She couldn’t have made up a story more likely to hook me,” thinks Sandy. Now an assistant to the curator at a national museum, Martina was detained at border control on her return from abroad because the passport she offered wasn’t the one she’d used on departing. “Is one country not enough for you?” an agent snapped. Then the agents checked her baggage and found the Boothby Lock, a cumbersome — and menacing — 16th century English lock and key.
Smith’s books often force one to think along such streams of consciousness before breaking the wave with a swell of emotion. Leaping from deep investigations of words and ideas to cultural references as lofty as Keats and as basic as Paul McCartney’s Wings , Smith is intellectually rigorous yet democratic, warm and — crucially — playful.The painter known to many as Lucian Freud’s one-time muse writes of her own muse, her mother, and provers herself a masterful writer as well.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Howard Stern: Hollywood is ‘f–ked up’ for Dave Chappelle vs. Will Smith responseHoward Stern is slamming Tinseltown for allegedly treating Will Smith differently than Dave Chappelle’s assailant.
Read more »
Chris Rock Makes Will Smith Joke After Dave Chappelle AttackedThe attack on Chappelle comes less than two months after Chris Rock was slapped by Will Smith during the 2022 Oscars.
Read more »
Chris Rock Reacts to Dave Chappelle Tackle: ‘Was That Will Smith?’Chris Rock joined Dave Chappelle onstage after an attacker tackled Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl. Watch Rock react with a timely punchline about Will Smith
Read more »
Sparks waive Te’a Cooper, Arella Guirantes and Kianna SmithWith 14 players on a roster that eventually will have to be trimmed to 12, they’ll start the season Friday with 11 players until Kristi Toliver, Katie Samuelson and center Amanda Zahui B. ret…
Read more »
Granger Smith shares a video of his infant ‘swimming’ to honor his son who drownedThe country music star and his wife, Amber, lost their 3-year-old son, River, in June 2019.
Read more »