![]() The quartet is an experiment in writing about how we live now, and especially about how we register the language of politics in our everyday lives – how far we escape it, how much we are defined by it. Smith has produced one ‘seasonal’ book a year for the last four years, beginning with Autumn in October 2016 and ending now in high summer – or, to put it another way, beginning with the EU referendum and ending with Covid-19. Done and dusted … dawn of a new era.’ She voted Leave. She says things like ‘when I was young and foolish’, ‘you young people’, ‘what is cancel culture?’ She endlessly harks back to her feminist heyday in the 1980s, when she was an actor she refers to herself as ‘ so menopausal’ when her memory fails her she talks in slogans, particularly about Brexit: ‘All over now. But in other ways (and possibly in that way too) she is a caricature of her generation. Grace gets good marks from the novel’s thirtysomethings for her resolve to live on easy terms with her ex-husband (‘next door dad’), who lives – next door – with his much younger girlfriend. ![]() ![]() In Summer, the final novel of Smith’s seasons quartet, the harried mother is Grace. ![]() I mean that Smith gives them a hard time, as well as acknowledging the hard time they’ve had already, just getting this far, in one piece. ![]() M others have a hard time in Ali Smith’s novels. ![]()
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