Smith’s sisters haunted by ghosts, childhood memories

The 15th novel by Scottish author Ali Smith details the remembered traumas or ghost stories of sisters Petra and Patch, who heard of ghost horses and people that were “pancaked” by an army tank (presumably while under military occupation during the First World War).

One also recalls feigning phone conversations with the neighbourhood kids’ dead dogs, while the other just remembers hearing of these stories in the form of fragmented memories. Some of these experiences — either directly witnessed or merely remembered by the two in piecemeal will haunt them deep into their adult years.

Despite having not seen each other in years, through the sisters’ telephone conversations they piece together memories and discuss present-day political goings-on without explicit reference to a particular country. There is an irony to the elder sister Petra’s occupation, as she is (now) an assistant audiologist — Petra also acts as an aid to what is remembered in the past or what was heard by Patch some years ago in childhood.

A homophone to Gliff, Smith’s 2024 novel, Glyph can be read without the former — the two are considered distant relatives or companion pieces. There are no characters or plotlines which tie the two together, and Glyph differs in its temporality in that it situates the sisters in between past and present day, as opposed to Gliff’s focus on the future.

The construction of the text itself is fragmented, strung together by its characters’ remembrances and precise dialogue which seems to omit details which may add depth, thus leaving little room for readers to feel privy to the happenings of the plot, or the characters themselves, and making it somewhat challenging to follow or palpably digest.

While overall Glyph is not a difficult read, at times it feels like a challenge to turn to the next page. Perhaps, however, for fans of Smith’s companion novel, her Seasonal Quartet series or her 2014 Man Booker Prize-winning How To Be Both, the voices of the two sisters may resonate deeper than the surface.

Riel Lynch is a bookseller and book blogger in Winnipeg.