The Whole Story and Other Stories - by Ali Smith (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author comes a collection of uniquely inventive stories that thread the labyrinth of coincidence, chance, and connections missed and made.

What happens when you run into Death in a busy train station? (You know he's Death because when he smiles, your cell phone goes dead.) What if your lover falls in love with a tree? Should you be jealous? From the woman pursued by a band of bagpipers in full regalia to the artist who's built a seven-foot boat out of secondhand copies of The Great Gatsby, Smith's characters are offbeat, charming, sexy, and as wonderfully complex as life itself.

Review Quotes

"Ali Smith has got style, ideas and punch. Read her." --Jeanette Winterson

"One of Britain's major talents. . . . Startlingly accomplished." --The Atlantic Monthly

"A joy to read." --Sunday Times (London)

"Smith is a gifted and meticulous architect of character and voice." --The Washington Post

"She's street-savvy and poignant at once. . . . There's a kind of stainless steel clarity at the center of her fiction." --The Boston Globe

"Smith proves herself an experimental writer even your mother could love." --Elle

About the Author

Ali Smith is the author of Hotel World, which was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize in 2001 and won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award in 2002. Her first collection of stories, Free Love, won the Saltire First Book Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award. Born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1962, Smith now lives in Cambridge, England.