Author:Ali Smith
SUNDAY TIMESNUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
A once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now.
'Her best yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and present with a chorus of voices' Observer
What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times?
Spring. The great connective.
With an eye to the migrancy of story over time, and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown Smith opens the door.
The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story?
Hope springs eternal.
Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith's new novel, Companion piece, is available now.
*****
'An astonishing accomplishment and a book for all seasons' Independent
'Smith is a masterful storyteller . . . Savour it' Evening Standard
'Infectious in its energy and warmth' Daily Telegraph
Luminous, generous, hope-filled... The third book in Ali Smith's seasonal quartet is her best yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and present with a chorus of voices... [Ali Smith] is lighting us a path out of the nightmarish now
—— ObserverIs there a writer so critically acclaimed and universally beloved? ...Autumn, Winter and Spring are stories of the unlikely connections human beings can make and the cost exacted when those connections are broken. They are state of the nation novels which understand that the nation is you, is me, is all of us: the nation is our choices, our fears, our losses... [Ali Smith] is the national novelist we need in 2019
—— New StatesmanAn astonishing accomplishment and a book for all seasons
—— IndependentSmith is a masterful storyteller... Spring is political but Smith is more concerned with the human fallout of current affairs then the machinations of elites... Through her account of unlikely friendships, Smith brings human values to the fore. Savour it, because there is just one instalment left
—— Evening StandardSpring weaves a story around the most pressing issues of our time... [A] bubbling, babbling brook of a book...Smith tells stories in a voice you can't help but listen to
—— The TimesA powerful vision of lost souls in a divided Britain... As Smith's Seasonal Quartet moves towards completion her own role in British fiction looks ever more vital. The final page proclaims spring 'the great connective'. It's not a bad description of Smith herself
—— GuardianBeguiling... The eagerly awaited third instalment
—— Financial TimesInfectious in its energy and warmth
—— Daily TelegraphJust when things were starting to look really bad, along comes the third instalment in Ali Smith's seasonal quartet to lift us out of the gloom... An extraordinary embodiment of the ways in which storytelling connects us... The work of Katherine Mansfield and Rilke, Greek myths and the propulsive lyricism of spring itself, thread together in narratives of loss and rejuvenation
—— Daily MailThe third of her exceptional Seasonal quartet, which riffs back and forth with Autumn and Winter to expound on the importance of hope to move us beyond the darkest of times
—— I paperThe most compelling and coherent of the three books... Smith, as always is interested in how a story gets told, and who gets to tell it
—— Sunday TimesAli Smith is one of our greatest living novelists, the Virginia Woolf of our times.
—— The ObserverA startling debut
—— Must Read , Image MagazineAn utterly beautiful book
—— Michael HardingA beautifully written account of a love triangle that feels so real I could have lived it myself
—— Kathleen MacMahonGorgeous, romantic, sad, melancholy, wise, amazing. I really recommend it ... One of the best books of the year
—— Seán HewittWise and beautifully bittersweet, The Weight of Love explores how we can be haunted by our own ghosts and the ghosts of others, by versions of our younger selves and the lives we failed to lead
—— Irish IndependentThe Weight of Love left me with a feeling I so rarely get with fiction - a sort of drunkenness, an ease. I sank into it and when I got to the end, I wanted to turn it over and start again
—— Business PostWonderful ... A novel about lots of different forms of love ... Everyone should buy it
—— Miriam O'Callaghan , RTÉ Radio 1Stunning ... perceptive, pitch-perfect.
—— Saga MagazineBeautifully written ... profoundly moving.
—— Sunday MirrorThe poet Frances Leviston brings her razor-sharp observations to prose.
—— MonocleThe Bass Rock is a multi-generational modern gothic triumph. It is spectacularly well-observed, profoundly disquieting and utterly riveting. Like all Evie Wyld's work it is startlingly insightful about psychological and physical abuse. It is a haunting, masterful novel.
—— Max PorterA brutal portrait of male violence, as unchanging down the centuries as the coastal rock of the title… Cleverly constructed, full of electric scene-making, and harnessing an eerie energy…the novel ends in hope.
—— Anthony Cummins , iEverything [Evie Wyld] has published has left me excited and slightly (very) envious of her ability… And then came The Bass Rock… Something extremely special… The book takes on an immense power. This is the best book of the #MeToo era… An absolute blinder.
—— Fran Slater , BookmunchVividly told and compelling… The Bass Rock is…beautifully written and powered by blistering force and righteous anger.
—— Alice O'Keefe , BooksellerEvie Wyld is exceptionally good at the gruesome… Her bewitching third novel…The Bass Rock is beautifully written and its particular brand of macabre is all Evie Wyld’s own. The tension, foreboding and sense of inevitability are hard to shake off, even once the final page is turned. Its atmosphere is so powerful that you feel you need to go for a walk afterwards.
—— Cressida Connolly , Literary ReviewA dark, gristly marvel of a novel. The Bass Rock held me in thrall from cover to cover. Evie Wyld is a gothic genius: her narrative of the violence inflicted on women throughout the centuries and the seething, female anger left in its wake left me with a deep sense of disquiet that will doubtless remain for years to come.
—— Hannah KentA fierce novel exploring the subjugation of – and violence against – women through the ages.
—— Hannah Beckerman , ObserverI savoured this wonderful novel; it is so extraordinarily clear-eyed and vivid, sharply disturbing yet deeply compassionate. What an amazing achievement.
—— Megan HunterWonderfully subtle and magnificently savage.
—— Claire FullerEvie Wyld's vivid, visceral writing has long been in a class of its own – and as beautiful as it is terrifying, as moral as it is furious, The Bass Rock is her at her unflinching best.
—— Melissa HarrisonAmazingly good. The Bass Rock will fill the air around you with angry ghosts and you will be glad in their company.
—— Adam FouldsWyld’s The Bass Rock is her third novel and best so far… this is Wyld’s masterpiece – as majestic and monumental as the landmark it’s named after.
—— Alex Preston , Observer, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*A bewitching and atmospheric novel, laced with dread. It reveals the haunted house of society, with its echoes of damaged and extinguished lives, but is also illuminated by beautiful observation about people, and their capacity for both violence and empathy.
—— James ScudamoreI loved The Bass Rock and found it menacing, sophisticated, magical and also very funny – the best book yet by a wonderful writer.
—— Anjali JosephEvie Wyld’s The Bass Rock sounds fascinating… Wyld has a luminous prose style, and to see how she copes with 300 years and Scottish doubleness (or tripleness) is high on my list of “to reads”.
—— Stuart Kelly , Scotland on SundayBeautifully written, [The Bass Rock] is a reminder of female folklore and the power of giving words to women.
—— Stylist *10 glorious new books to buy this March*Ambitious in scope… The physical atmosphere of the Bass Rock and its surroundings are wonderfully evoked… But it is the relationships between women in this tessellated work that triumph... I wholly recommend this book.
—— William Jolt , Tablet, *Novel of the Week*Wyld is often praised for her lyrical prose, and The Bass Rock is most certainly a continuation of this form.
—— Julie Vuong , Skinny[A] dark, beautiful and funny gothic family saga for the #MeToo generation… an atmospheric book that transports you within a few sentences… The tension is always building as the story takes on an otherworldly dimension.
—— Charlotte Cripps , IndependentThe Bass Rock is complex, rich, challenging… Like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, The Bass Rock offers a universal history of subjugation and oppression… Violence…runs through the book like veins in marble… Vivid and gripping.
—— Irish TimesA gripping look at three women's stories across four centuries.
—— Joanne Finney , Good HousekeepingEvie Wyld’s passion for horror shines through in the setting of this novel.
—— Chiara Rimella , MonocleUtterly enthralling… [Wyld’s] eye for human foibles and idiosyncrasy is incredibly sharp, and this novel once again exhibits her bravura way with narrative structure… Dark, disturbing and very sophisticated.
—— William Boyd , Sunday Times[An] intensely absorbing gothic novel, which weaves together the fate of three women across three centuries. That it can also comfortably accommodate episodes of off-the-wall, Fleabag-esque hilarity confirms the acclaimed Wyld's brilliance.
—— Stephanie Cross , Daily Mail *Best of Summer Books*Wyld's thought-provoking plots separate this book from many others on the shelves... Wyld's three narratives are artfully crafted to suit the shifting time frames.
—— Scottish FieldWyld's ingeniously linked narratives weave a haunting tale of fear and defiance.
—— Jane Shilling , Daily MailA novel of such subtlety and hope
—— Ross Raisin, author of A NATURAL , Observer, *Summer Reads of 2022*