Dead and alive Essays

Novelist and critic Smith (Feel Free) brings an incisive eye and keen wit to art, music, fiction, politics, and more in this wide-ranging essay collection. Whether analyzing the misogyny faced by female muses; celebrating the work of a generational novelist, such as Toni Morrison; or pointedly commenting on the political and cultural tumult of the current moment, Smith delivers original insights couched in sly, artful prose. ("We thought our lives would be reasonably paced and tell a story full of meaning. Instead it's just been one thing after another, and there are no neat conclusions, except the certainty of death.") Smith offers moments of small delight--like the time she as a young writer unknowingly bummed a smoke off Joan Didion--and takes aim at groups threatening the planet, like think tanks and lobbyists who deny climate change. Standout essays abound, but "Some Notes on Mediated Time" shines as an era-defining summation of how technology impedes the ability to be present. Readers will be rewarded by this unforgettable collection. (Oct.)

A take on the world. In a gathering of 30 essays and talks from 2016 to early 2025, Smith reflects on arts and politics, aging and craft. Several pieces were informed by dismaying political events: Receiving a literary award from Kenyon College three days after the 2024 American election, Smith talked about the need to protect vulnerable people; in Austria, in 2018, when that country was turning to the political right, she spoke about multiculturalism, exemplified by the makeup of the British World Cup team. At a rally in London, she spoke about climate change denialism; and in an essay written before the July 4, 2024, British election, she reminded her readers about what the Labour Party should stand for, in light of increasing inequality. Politics and history infuse an essay on Kara Walker's "mode of relating to the ruins of the past" and her forewords to reissues of Gretchen Gerzina'sBlack England and James Weldon Johnson'sBlack Manhattan. Smith offers moving obituaries for writers she admires and has learned from: Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and Hilary Mantel. The movieTar inspires Smith to think about artistic monsters; artist Celia Paul's memoir of her relationship with Lucien Freud elicits an essay about being, or resisting being, a muse. Smith reflects on her own writing in her foreword to her novelThe Fraud, in an interview with a Spanish journalist, and in a talk on craft for a fiction workshop. She extols her beloved Kilburn, in London, and pays homage to New York, where she observes an unexpected sense of community when diverse New Yorkers jump in--silently and efficiently--to help a young mother whose baby carriage suddenly breaks. In that essay and others, Smith seems cautiously optimistic that "moral intelligence" will prevail in hard times. A thoughtful, deft collection. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.