Book after Book

By Ali Smith Published by Penguin A simple story: during a dinner party at Gen and Eric Lee’s house in Greenwich, Miles enters the guestroom, locks the door and refuses to come out. Possibly, ever again. What follows is a procession of acquaintances, who, some in indirect and others in more direct ways, allow us to catch a glimpse of the person behind the locked door. There is Anna, who met Miles during a trip to Europe when they were teenagers. There is Mark, a gay man who met him at the theatre and invited him to that fateful dinner. There is an old lady whose daughter died at an early age. And, last but not least, there is Brooke, the young and inquisitive neighbour of the Lees. Miles, who becomes a kind of hero for hordes of followers, is an invisible main character. Action is also almost non-existent while the novel fluctuates back and forth in time, in the same way that young Brooke hops on either side of the Greenwich meridian line. The main dimension of this bo...