Product Description

Distinguished by Smith's trademark ability to unearth flashes of truth and depth in the everyday, The First Person and Other Stories sparkles with warmth and humanity. In one story, a middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her fourteen-year-old self. In another, an innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting, yet beautiful child. And in a third story that challenges the boundaries between fiction and reality, the narrator, 'Ali', drinks tea, phones a friend, and muses on the surprising similarities between a short story and a nymph... Fans of Ali Smith will be delighted, amused and moved by these stories from a writer at the very top of her game.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104040 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and lives in Cambridge. She is the author of Free Love, Like, Hotel World, Other Stories and Other Stories, The Whole Story and Other Stories, The Accidental and Girl Meets Boy.

Customer Reviews

"So many pieces of me! I must hold tight," Edwin Morgan
''True to oneself! Which self?'' Katherine Mansfield

Two of the epigraphs for Ali Smith's new collection of short stories underline her theme of the multiplicities of selves that we reveal to ourselves and others. In Writ the protagonist's fourteen year old self shows up and they chat. The fourteen year old is moody and spotty and greasy haired and the protaganist wonders about the things she could say that would help but doesn't - knowing that she will have to discover things - will have to invent herself.

In `astute fiery luxurious' a lover's story reveals another teenage self and her passion for an air rifle firing girl. She pursues her by befriending her sister and rushes through a primitive fortune telling game with her every Saturday until she can gaze on her object of desire. The story is good and revealing but the lover challenges this rehearsed version immediately, professing to prefer the sound of the sister who was willing to offer up three new possible self inventions every week. Smith play with the possibilties that new loves give for new starts, for self reinvention.

The stories, the titles and the pronouns - You and I figure heavily - play with the stories we tell ourselves and others throughout this collection. Ali Smith is a master at this type of witty writing and each of the stories works in its own right. As a collection I felt myself tiring by the end - wanting a bit more substance and development in some of the situations she has set up.

In the opening story `True Short Story' Smith lists what some famous short story writers have said about the form - of which here are three:

Alice Munro says that every short story is at least two short stories

Grace Paley said that she chose to write only short stories in her life because art is too long and life is too short, and that short stories are, by nature, about life, and that life itself is always found in dialogue and argument

Walter Benjamin said that short stories are stronger than the real lived moment because they can go on releasing the real, lived moment after the real, lived moment is dead.

`True Short Story' is at least two short stories. The lovers in these stories define themselves through dialogue and argument. At their best the stories in this excellent collection release a real lived moment - I wanted more of those.

almost made me miss my stop
Ali Smith's newest book of short stories was a revelation to me. They unpick the nature of fiction, at the same time as being wonderfully simple, entertaining tales. The first one eavesdrops on a chat about books in a café, takes us to a cancer ward, and meditates on the saga of NICE and its approval of the drug Herceptin, at the same time as seriously considering what a short story should be, and how it works. To have covered all that in just thirteen pages seemed to me amazing.

The next, 'The Child', is completely surreal, as the narrator finds a baby in her trolley at Waitrose. Despite the weirdness, Ali Smith anchors the reader firmly in a world of Tesco Metro and British neo-nationalism, thinking about right and wrong and the phrase, 'out of the mouths of babes'.

It's hard to talk about the stories without giving away the plot, but it's a wonderful book. She has a sense of humour, her tone is just right in every story, and her intellect is ferocious and always present. I just got lost in the book on the tube this morning. I had never read anything by her before, I am ashamed to say, but will now be ordering it all. Clever, funny, utterly thought-provoking. The first book I've read for a while where I thought, I hope they are still reading this in a hundred years.

did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would
Read this as part of a book club. It did get quite mixed reviews from different readers. There were parts of each story that interested me and were indeed thought provoking. I was left with the impression that the book was written by a very talented writer with the ability to change style from story to story. However I felt the main problem was the plots being complicated with not enough thought given to character development in each story. It was hard to remain focused on each story and I lost interest in the characters throughout the book.

I have not read any of the other books written by this writer. I would be keen to read some of her other work as I get the impression she is a talented and a very good writer but would say this book did not quite work.