Stranger Prods a Family Into Self-Awareness ; * the Accidental, by Ali Smith; Pantheon, 320 Pages, $22.95.

Summary

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Tolstoy assures us that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but the fractured, secretive Smarts in Ali Smith's enticing though occasionally frustrating new novel are stubbornly pedestrian in their misery. Their problems infidelity, fear, regret, guilt, social isolation, inability to let go or make sense of the past are neither unusual nor surprising and are, in fact, the sorts of troubles that sink most of us sooner or later.

Author of the dazzling novel "Hotel World," a technical high- wire act in which five women are united by the death of a young chambermaid in a dumbwaiter and, like "The Accidental," a Man Booker Prize finalist, Smith is also known for several terrific short- story collections reveling in the strange and wonderful.

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Extract

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Stranger Prods a Family Into Self-Awareness ; * the Accidental, by Ali Smith; Pantheon, 320 Pages, $22.95.

"The Accidental" is more grounded in reality than her other work, with dist...

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