Autumn: A Novel (Seasonal Quartet)

MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • The first novel in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet is an unforgettable story about aging and time and love—and stories themselves.
 
Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Two old friends—Daniel, a centenarian, and Elisabeth, born in 1984—look to both the future and the past as the United Kingdom stands divided by a historic, once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand-in-hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.
 
A luminous meditation on the meaning of richness and harvest and worth, Autumn is the first installment of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, and it casts an eye over our own time: Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearean jeu d’esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s pop art. Autumn is wide-ranging in time-scale and light-footed through histories.

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Published Oct 17, 2017

288 pages

Average rating: 7.04

27 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Ly
Jul 22, 2025
Tillie
annaelisa
Jun 28, 2023
2/10 stars
dnf @ 46%
E Clou
May 10, 2023
8/10 stars
A beautiful and very unusual love-triangle story. I think the images of people dressed as trees and the leaf-spirit will stay with me for a long time.

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