Companion piece cover art

Companion piece

The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of How to be both

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Companion piece

By: Ali Smith
Narrated by: Natalie Simpson
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartet


'A story is never an answer. A story is always a question.'


Here we are in extraordinary times.
Is this history?

What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other?
What have we lost?
What stays with us?
What does it take to unlock our future?

Following her astonishing quartet of Seasonal novels, Ali Smith again lights a way for us through the nightmarish now, in a vital celebration of companionship in all its forms.

'Every hello, like every voice, holds its story ready, waiting.'

© Ali Smith 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

Superb, radical, remarkable (Mohsin Hamid)
A lockdown story of wayward genius . . . Lyrical visions alternate with fables and farce, history with Covid, in the scheme-busting fifth part of Smith's seasonal quartet (Lucy Hughes-Hallett)
Scintillating . . . Companion Piece, like life, is messy, funny, sad, beautiful and mysterious (Alex Preston)
Both a standalone novel and a coda to her Seasonal quartet, Ali Smith's latest, set during the pandemic, offers a wise and humane voice for perilous times
Smith's way of telling a story - looping in time; switching from one fast-flicking consciousness to another; tying up radically different periods of history in a single place - and her amused delight in the flexibilities of language feel not only modernist but, better than that, modern
Alive to the music and light of language
Smith's work is brainy and moving, thoughtful and playful
Like Smith's other novels, Companion piece is a formally dazzling story, constructed from a découpage of funny, messy, beautifully disparate elements
It is remarkable to be alive at the same time as Scottish writer Ali Smith . . . Smith is intellectually rigorous yet democratic, warm and - crucially - playful
All stars
Most relevant
I tried it twice and remained confused by the way in which Smith links then and now in a theme of isolation or discrimination or its resolve and how we are all in the same dark anyway because nobody reads hisrory or the present properly anyway. obvious parallel between the plague and other viruses feels a little naively treated. And what's with the dog story?

tedious amount of masking hysteria

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The thing I love most about Ali Smith is her word play, I love a good pun and Ali is a master at that, she is an etymological maestro. Companion piece is as clever and entertaining as Ali Smith’s previous four seasonal books and it is just as angry as those books in its political observations. If you loved those books you’ll love this extra volume. The only criticism I would make is that it is a short book and over far too quickly.

Highly entertaining and a joy to listen to.

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Two totally unconnected stories beyond belief that someone could move into your home. And what was all the twaddle about the dog.

Pointless and unintelligible

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