Emma recommends... Gliff - Ali Smith | SIGNED EDITION

Emma recommends... Set in a dystopian, totalitarian near future, siblings Bri and Rose - part of a social subclass termed "Unverifiables" - are on the run from the tyrannical and crazily bureaucratic state. Managing to be both utterly terrifying and beautifully whimsical, this novel is pure Smith. Full of fantastic wordplay, part of and reflecting the siblings' quest for and questioning of 'meaning', Gliff makes for wonderful reading - a dire warning that will still bring a smile to your face.

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O brave new world, that has such people in't.

Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house.

What does it mean?

It’s a truism of our time that it’ll be the next generation who’ll sort out our increasingly toxic world.

What would that actually be like?

In a state turned hostile, a world of insiders and outsiders, what things of the past can sustain them and what shape can resistance take?

And what’s a horse got to do with any of this?

Gliff is a novel about how we make meaning and how we are made meaningless. With a nod to the traditions of dystopian fiction, a glance at the Kafkaesque, and a new take on the notion of classic, it's a moving and electrifying read, a vital and prescient tale of the versatility and variety deep-rooted in language, in nature and in human nature.