Winter: Ali Smith

Dark yet life-affirming, endlessly inventive and heart-breakingly human - the next novel in the `Seasonal` cycle, following the Man Booker-shortlisted Autumn
Winter? Bleak. Earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. But winter makes things visible. And Christmas is a time for family reunions, unexpected guests and evergreen truths.
It`s December in Cornwall and Art`s mother is seeing things. Art has problems too. His girlfriend has left so he`s paying Lux, a young immigrant he found on the street, to impersonate her - but Lux has no intention of sticking to the script. And Iris, Art`s prodigal aunt, septuagenarian CND-er and black sheep of the family, is about to arrive with a car full of food and a throat full of protest songs. Four people, strangers and family, in a fifteen-bedroom house for Christmas - will there be enough room for everyone?
Winter casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, art, love and memory, protest and survival.