First, a confession. Ali Smith has been a heroine of mine since she eschewed professional theatre companies and chose instead a bunch of schoolchildren to adapt her novel Hotel World for the stage. The result? A Fringe Report award for Best Play at Edinburgh in 2007. To me, this gesture, and the way she preferred to workshop the piece rather than impose a set script on her actors, reflected not just her passion for the living, breathing nature of text but also her generosity of spirit. Both are in evidence in the latest collection of twelve short stories. 

Smith’s departure into theatre last year is not really surprising. Any one of these short stories could be read out loud, featuring as they do sprightly, pungent dialogue. ‘We agreed not to behave like this’, says the recipient of a 3 am phonecall in ‘No Exit’. There’s a whole delicious back story in that sentence, hinting at ongoing friction and repeated attempts at maturity. Similarly, ‘What now?’ asks the recipient of a different phonecall, in ‘Astute Fiery Luxurious’. The caller (few characters in this book have proper names) is a poorly woman who has received a misdirected parcel. In the hours that follow, she and her partner try to get rid of the parcel and the poorly woman confesses to a teenage crush on a cruel girl at school. But those two words, in the fourth line, hang over the story and set the tone of discomfort beautifully.

Smith is a shrewd cartographer of unease. ‘The Child’, in particular, brought me out in a cold sweat, with its depiction of a woman in Waitrose who returns to her trolley to find a verbally precocious toddler sitting in the seat. No one in the supermarket will believe her when she insists the child is not hers. The ending is perfect, and had me smiling in satisfaction at its literary neatness, but I was aware that my smile hid nervous laughter: in some sense this story could happen to any of us.

With the odd swipe at post offices threatened with closure, asylum seekers, and the ironic acronym NICE for the body that restricts the use of cancer drugs, we are in the real world, and yet at the same time in a world where words can make anything happen. ‘The Third Person’ transports us from a Mediterranean resort to a theatre. In ‘Writ’, the narrator bonds with her fourteen-year-old self over ELO songs. The power of the tale is not just in its psychological astuteness (the narrator longs for reassurance from her teenage self that her achievements in adulthood have been impressive), but in the simplicity of the idea: who has not at some time reflected on the advice that they would give their younger self? Because Smith nails emotions so cleanly, her stories are grounded, even when they seem surreal.

Smith’s writing is highly supple, and there is something going on in every sentence. ‘Fidelio and Bess’ describes a woman ironing. ‘But she’s not a prisoner, no.’ I love that sarcastic final word. It’s not Smith’s way to beat you over the head with her ideas, but as with her theatrical venture, her stories are propelled by an immediacy that is seductively inclusive.