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Waifs and strays: Gliff, by Ali Smith, reviewed

Two lonely, recalcitrant children, Briar and Rose, find themselves among a bunch of other rag-tag misfits resisting ‘re-education’ by the brutal regime in power

2 November 2024

9:00 AM

2 November 2024

9:00 AM

Gliff Ali Smith

Hamish Hamilton, pp.274, 8.99

‘Gliff’ is a word which can mean ‘a short moment’, ‘a wallop’, and ‘a post-ejaculatory sex act’; to ‘dispel snow’, ‘to frighten’, and to ‘escape something quickly’. It’s ‘really excitingly polysemous’, says one of Ali Smith’s characters. It’s certainly an apt title for a book which can’t seem to define itself.

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