Summer

July 15, 2020
The last volume of British writer Smith's elliptical, engrossing seasonal quartet revisits themes of activism and art and some familiar characters. Smith weaves from seemingly disparate threads here. "Whether I shall turn out to be the heroine of my own life" is a quote a woman named Grace is trying to source. Her memory has regendered the original "hero," from David Copperfield. Grace and her clever teenage kids join writers Art and Charlotte as they head to Suffolk in early 2020 to return a piece of art last seen in 1985 in Smith's second seasonal book, Winter (2018), when Art's mother slept with a man named Daniel. Now 104, Daniel is helped by Elisabeth, who befriended him in her childhood in Autumn (2017). His memory drifts back to World War II, when he was held in U.K. detention centers with other men of German background. His sister, who helped people escape to Switzerland from Occupied France, has another crucial link to the small cast. Present-day political refugee Hero has been in a detention center for nearly three years; his passage to freedom involves a kind of coffee truck last seen in Spring (2019). "Nothing's not connected," says "a seasoned lefty activist." This volume sounds the quartet's recurrent klaxons about injustice, dereliction, and the perennial problem of how too few people step up. The main issues are immigration, refugees, Brexit, and COVID-19. Smith even briefly works in George Floyd. As always, the narrative zigs and zags, skimps on segues, demands attention and effort. The reward is a novel that is wonderfully entertaining--for its humor, allusions, deft use of time and memory, sharply realized characters, and delightfully relevant digressions--and a reminder, brought home by the pandemic, that everything and everyone truly is connected and the sufferance of suffering hurts us all. A deeply resonant finale to a work that should come to be recognized as a classic.

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August 28, 2020

In this final entry in the four-time Man Booker short-listed Smith's "Seasonal Quartet," a nasty practical joke involving an hourglass and some crazy glue applied by a bratty brother to his sister's hand leads to a chance encounter with the couple who come to her rescue. On their way to deliver a piece of sculpture to Daniel Gluck, the urbane European last seen languishing in a nursing home in Smith's Autumn, the couple end up inviting brother, sister, and their eccentric mother along on their trip to Suffolk. Daniel, now 104, has been moved into his neighbor's home and mentally drifts between the present and his wartime internment as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. A number of other characters from the previous three seasonal titles turn up again, as preoccupied as they were with climate catastrophe, the refugee crisis and Brexit fallout. VERDICT Set partly in the astonishing Coronavirus/George Floyd present and partly in the World War I era of Resistance France and prison-camp England, Smith's latest is suffused with the warmth of a more hopeful future and brings her quartet to a satisfying conclusion.--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2020

A winner of Costa and Baileys Women's Prize honors and short-listed four times for the Man Booker Prize, Smith wraps up her interlinked "Seasonal Quartet" with a nod to the golden months. No plot details yet, but the entire quartet ranges over eras, assessing the passage of time and the complexity of human relationships. The opener, Autumn, a multi-best-booked title, boasts over 56,000 copies in print.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.