Award-winning author Ali Smith again lights a way for us through the nightmarish now with a provocative novel grounded both in the contemporary era and in the uncannily familiar era of the Black Plague. Companion Piece stands apart from her astonishing Seasonal Quartet, which remains discrete unto itself. But like Smith’s groundbreaking series, this new novel boldly captures the spirit of the times.“A woman receives an unexpected call from a former classmate asking for help deciphering a puzzling interaction, and from there, Smith spins out a broader story about loneliness, refuge and freedom." —The New York Times Book Review "Lyrical and timely . . . Smith’s novel will push readers to consider what it means to let people into your life, even when you don’t want to.” —TIME"A story is never an answer. A story is always a question."Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history? What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us? What does it take to unlock our future? “Every hello, like every voice, holds its story ready, waiting.” A BEST BOOK OF MAY: New York Times, Time Magazine, Esquire, LitHub, Philadelphia Inquirer“It is remarkable to be alive at the same time as Scottish writer Ali Smith. No one else, I would argue, captures our ongoing contemporary nightmare in a manner that is both expansively imaginative and the perfect mirror of its abrupt absurdity. . . . A novel both enigmatic and inviting, begging to be read and reread. . . . A clever, erudite and humane portrait of our intense contemporary moment. Leaping from mythology to etymology, history to literature, she also makes the granular elements of daily movement the stuff of life-sustaining art. She shows, again, what exceptional fiction can do in troubled times that nothing else can.” —Lauren LeBlanc, Los Angeles Times “Companion Piece is a novel for people who love language. . . . Coming on the heels of Smith’s seasonal quartet, which somehow kept up with the blitzkrieg of current events, Companion Piece takes place in our pandemic-inflected world, an all-too-familiar territory that Smith characteristically renders wonderfully strange. This she does, in part, by blending Sandy’s 21st-century story with another set in the plague-haunted England of the late Middle Ages.” —Ellen Atkins, The Washington Post “Superb. . . . Martina was held and questioned while transporting the centuries-old Boothby Lock for the museum where she works. “It’s really beautiful,” Martina tells Sandy. “It’s really cunning too. You could never tell by looking at it that it’s even a lock, or that it has any mechanism at all inside it, never mind find how or where the key goes into it to open it.” Which is, of course, a fine description of this novel, itself a lock, crafted by a smith, that is, by A. Smith, demanding in the engagement it requires, and rewarding of that engagement, as one picks away at the words she has used to build it. . . . [A] remarkable novel.” —Mohsin Hamid, The New York Times Book Review “In her latest novel, wordsmith nonpareil Ali Smith once again shows herself to be a master of forging inventive connections. Companion Piece helps us see our world in a different light by finding points of contact between two plagues and two female artists, five centuries apart. . . . Ever intent on expanding our understanding of others and the world we share, Smith's work is brainy and moving, thoughtful and playful — and never irrelevant. But timely though her work may be, Smith is not one to eschew the long view: History matters to her, and so do artists and artisans from the past — almost as much as words. . . . One of Smith's great gifts as a writer is verbal playfulness — a joy of lex — even in dark times. . . . Smith, on fire, welds so many elements into this short novel . . . that the result is as intricate as that artisanal lock.” —Heller McAlpin, NPR"Lyrica
- Libro Impreso
- Edición:
- Editorial: Vintage
- Autor: Smith, Ali
