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Martin Amis said that there seems to be a requisite period of time before one can write about historical events, especially catastrophes. He was referring to 9-11 and his first publication about it�The Second Plane—which did not appear until 2008. Ali Smith, however, in Winter, seems to be writing about Brexit and T.—may his name remain anathema—as it happens. Barely a month could have passed between the time Lord Soames in the House of Commons wolf whistled at a rather attractive female member and when Smith began writing about it. The facts are so quickly appropriated and set down that they feel raw, unprocessed, piecemeal. This gives the novel the feel of a tabloid.

I don’t want my novels filled with current events. I read more than ever now for a novel’s ability to create an alternative world. I don’t read fantasy, but I can see why readers are drawn to fantasy now. I understand the need for escapism and, thus, relief. I’m not putting Smith’s experiment down, but I do admit to not understanding it. John Gardner once wrote about how we read to be immersed in the dream. Well, there’s no dream here. Instead the novel reimmerses us in the topicality we thought we’d put aside. In this age of news hitting you 24/7 from dozens of content sources, is this what we really want—the news invading our novels too? I much prefer the sections here set in the past, perhaps because there’s some consensus on what those times mean.

By contrast, in Smith’s Autumn the news was sufficiently backgrounded amid a wonderful story of a girl and an old man and how their lovely relationship evolves over talks of books and painting over 30 years. Hints of the current unpleasantness arise but do not overwhelm the narrative as they do here.