The Accidental

Ali Smith First published 2005

About this book

The Accidental is a 2005 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. It follows a middle-class English family who are visited by an uninvited guest, Amber, while they are on holiday in a small village in Norfolk. Amber's arrival has a profound effect on all the family members. Eventually she is cast out the house by the mother, Eve. But the consequences of her appearance continue even after the family has returned home to London.

The novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the Man Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and it won the Whitbread Award.

Subjects

18.05 english literature
domestic fiction
england, fiction
english literature
fiction
fiction, general
fiction, psychological
fiction, sagas
great britain, fiction
large type books
literary fiction
literature
psychological fiction
sexual and gender disorders
social conditions
strangers
summer resorts
truthfulness and falsehood
women biographers
young women, fiction