The Accidental by Ali Smith (#47, Reader's Choice)

I feel like I am back in lit class after reading this book. An impulse purchase one snowy afternoon from the book store on Exchange Street after a fruitless search at the library, I unknowingly grabbed what will soon be the next post-post modern novel. I started this on the short plane ride to JFK and then spent my three hour layover struggling through the first half. Somewhere in my labors I had a realization about who Ali Smith echoes--Don DeLillo's White Noise. If only I was still in college--oh the paper I could write comparing the two. The English professor father, the troubled children, the father/mother relationship, the family dynamic, the isolation, the outsider/intruder and that would be just scratching the surface.

Did I like this book? Not really. Did it challenge me in a way that I haven't been challenged in a while? Absolutely. I found myself picking it apart, analyzing the characters, trying to figure out what it all really meant. What really happened? The writing is cryptic yet vivid, strange yet average. The four narrators have distinct narrative voices and they each go through something important as a result of their interaction with "the accidental." I almost want to read it again, because I know I will get it a little more. I will see something I didn't see in the first cursory read. It would almost be like being back in college, reading the second time through a novel looking for connections, for details, for pieces that will fit with other pieces and make a statement. I miss those days.