April 15, 2024
Smith blends autofiction and absurdity in his provocative if underwhelming first novel, which follows a 20-something writer named Gabriel who’s tasked by his mother with clearing out his childhood home and putting it up for sale after his father’s death. Life is already tough for Gabriel. He’s having trouble writing, and is heartbroken after a split from his girlfriend, also a writer, whose work is gaining popularity on the internet. Moreover, the top layer of Gabriel’s skin has been peeling off for some unknown reason. Others believe it’s only eczema, but he’s not convinced (“It looked like a glove of myself”), and he copes by drifting through his days on Xanax. His father was a writer, and after finding manuscripts written by his mother, who lives in a nursing home, Gabriel learns she was one, too. Every time he picks up his mother’s manuscripts, they seem to change. And not only that—the characters in his mother’s stories come to life and warn him not to sell the house. Unfortunately, the intriguing plot is undercut by pedestrian prose (“I went out of my father’s study and took half of one of the pink Xanax bars and lay down on the sofa and waited for my thoughts to turn off”). This doesn’t quite match the scale of its ambition. Agent: Kristi Murray, Wylie Agency.
May 1, 2024
Smith's picaresque first novel is told from the perspective of Gabriel, a writer struggling with numerous issues. His girlfriend left him, his dad died, and he cannot seem to get started on his second novel. Rather than live in the place he used to share with his ex-girlfriend, he opts to move into the now empty home where his dad lived and to spend his days drinking, smoking weed and cigarettes, and loosely piecing together his parents' lives from their leftover belongings. Since both attempted to write, and Gabriel's grandma is a writer, Smith includes excerpts from their plays, intriguing stories, and fables. As in Practice (2024), by Rosalind Brown, the novel follows the minutiae of everything the narrator turns his gaze to, but what is unique here is that this is also a deeply gothic work that never quite settles the reader in a certain world as Gabriel's foibles, ghostly visions, and uncertainties filter every moment. Written in short, clipped chapters and featuring uproarious dialogue (especially with Gabriel's brother), this is a darkly comic and brilliantly unusual debut.
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May 15, 2024
A man loses his skin, and possibly his sanity, in this bizarre debut. Gabriel, the narrator of Smith's novel, is having a rough time. As the book opens, the London man is in a doctor's office; he thinks he might have a concussion after having been hit by his teenage nephew. The doctor gives him the all-clear for his head but notes he might have eczema. As it turns out, it's something much weirder and much worse: Large pieces of skin begin to peel from his body. That's not the only setback he's facing--his girlfriend has abruptly moved out of their shared flat, and his father recently died, which Gabriel isn't handling well. (It doesn't help that he calls one of the mourners at the funeral a "stupid purple bitch.") Gabriel moves to the house his parents shared--his mother is in a nursing home--in order to prep it for sale, but he doesn't get much done except drink, smoke weed, and read mysteriously changing manuscripts left behind by his parents. He also encounters a mysterious boy and girl who he thinks might have a connection to his parents' stories, along with a mysterious man with a deer face mask. This is a bizarre novel, but not in a self-conscious way--Smith genuinely seems to care about his characters, especially the can't-win-for-losing Gabriel, and it's not quirky for quirk's sake. While his prose can be unadorned to a fault at times, his dialogue shines, and there's an undercurrent of humor throughout that leavens the book's darkness. (In one section, Gabriel says that he slicks his hair back "like a movie Italian.") This novel isn't for everyone, but readers who appreciate the morbidly funny and the just plain morbid will find a lot to love in these pages. A weird and darkly funny novel from a writer to watch.
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