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Overview
Filled with the bestselling, award-winning author's trademark wordplay and inventive storytelling, here is the dizzyingly entertaining, wickedly humorous story of a mysterious stranger whose sudden appearance during a family's summer holiday transforms four variously unhappy people.
Each of the Smarts--parents Eve and Michael, son Magnus, and the youngest, daughter Astrid--encounter Amber in his or her own solipsistic way, but somehow her presence allows them to see their lives (and their life together) in a new light. Smith's narrative freedom and exhilarating facility with language propel the novel to its startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion.Customers Also Bought
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781400032181
- ISBN-10: 1400032180
- Publisher: Anchor Books
- Publish Date: April 2007
- Dimensions: 7.94 x 5.24 x 0.69 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.52 pounds
- Page Count: 320
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The Accidental
Smith, one of England's most popular authors, won the Whitbread Award for this remarkable novel. When a pretty young woman named Amber arrives at the Norfolk summer home of the Smart family in need of a place to stay, they take her in. Eve and Michael Smart are vacationing with Eve's children—Astrid, 12, and Magnus, 17. Amber quickly befriends the rebellious Astrid, who likes to film everything in sight with her digital video camera, and easily charms geeky Magnus, a math expert. She even wins over their self-satisfied stepfather, Michael, an English professor who likes to seduce his students. Eve, a writer of cheap novels, has become accustomed to Michael's adulterous ways and is indifferent to his growing affection for Amber. Indeed, Michael falls in love with the mysterious young woman—so deeply that he considers giving everything up for her. Told from the perspectives of all four family members, as well as that of Amber, The Accidental is a small tour-de-force, powerful and unrelenting in its look at a family forever altered by the unexpected arrival of a stranger. Smith, author of the acclaimed Hotel World (2001), has a growing reputation, and it's easy to see why.
A reading group guide is available in print and online at www.readinggroupcenter.com.
The Accidental
Smith, one of England's most popular authors, won the Whitbread Award for this remarkable novel. When a pretty young woman named Amber arrives at the Norfolk summer home of the Smart family in need of a place to stay, they take her in. Eve and Michael Smart are vacationing with Eve's children—Astrid, 12, and Magnus, 17. Amber quickly befriends the rebellious Astrid, who likes to film everything in sight with her digital video camera, and easily charms geeky Magnus, a math expert. She even wins over their self-satisfied stepfather, Michael, an English professor who likes to seduce his students. Eve, a writer of cheap novels, has become accustomed to Michael's adulterous ways and is indifferent to his growing affection for Amber. Indeed, Michael falls in love with the mysterious young woman—so deeply that he considers giving everything up for her. Told from the perspectives of all four family members, as well as that of Amber, The Accidental is a small tour-de-force, powerful and unrelenting in its look at a family forever altered by the unexpected arrival of a stranger. Smith, author of the acclaimed Hotel World (2001), has a growing reputation, and it's easy to see why.
A reading group guide is available in print and online at www.readinggroupcenter.com.