Barefoot, thirty-something Amber shows up at the door of a Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer, insinuating herself into their family. Dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives under the searing lens of Amber’s perceptions. When the mother Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not—as they find when they return home to London—from their profoundly altered lives. Fearlessly intelligent, disarmingly playful, THE ACCIDENTAL is a Joycean tour-de-force of literary improvisation that explores the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the transformative power of storytelling.

ALI SMITH has written six works of fiction including Hotel World, which was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award. Born in Inverness, Scotland, she now lives in Cambridge, England.