Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. That's what it felt like for
Keats in 1819. How about Autumn 2016? Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born
in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, 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.
Ali Smith's new novel is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and
exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. It is the
first installment of her Seasonal quartet—four stand-alone books, separate yet
interconnected and cyclical