Feel Free

November 20, 2017
In this collection of conversational essays, novelist Smith (Swing Time) brings her precise observations and distinct voice to an expansive range of topics. Smith comes across as a writer’s writer, with a love of form, function, and language—“Oh, the semicolons, the discipline!” she exclaims of Edward St. Aubyn. A self-professed “sentimental humanist,” Smith is alarmed by social media platforms such as Facebook and is smartly cutting on American race relations, discussed through pop-culture reference points that include Jay-Z lyrics and movies such as Get Out, “a compendium of black fears about white folk.” She is lacerating on the subject of British politics, blasting the ruling class’s “Londoncentric solipsism”; rather than policy changes, she advocates for nothing more—or less—than art and literature’s power to free the mind. At their most memorable, the essays are character studies, whether of a culture, such as the “limitless” Manhattan of “Find Your Beach”; a place, such as Rome’s Villa Borghese in “Love in the Gardens”; or a person, such as Billie Holliday in “Crazy They Call Me.” Smith’s explicit discomfort with any authoritative stance—“I have no real qualifications to write as I do”—feels a bit disingenuous, when this collection’s chief appeal lies in the revealing glimpses it affords into the mind and creative process of one of the most admired novelists writing in English.

March 26, 2018
British actress Amuka-Bird channels both the public persona and literary essence of novelist and essayist Smith in giving voice to this sprawling collection of nonfiction works. The essays vary in topic and include criticism of visual and literary arts, musings on pop culture, and incisive takes on current politics on both sides of the Atlantic; Amuka-Bird handles the sometimes swift transitions gracefully. She adds an especially evocative touch in her reading of Smith’s works that tackle racial and cultural identity. For Smith’s experimental piece on the tortured life of music legend Billie Holiday, which is written from the first-person perspective of Holiday, Amuka-Bird provides a chilling rendition of the singer’s bluesy, conversational cadence. When Smith recounts recent interviews with entertainers such as rapper Jay-Z and comedian and director Jordan Peele, Amuka-Bird doesn’t shy away from adding biting edges to their voices. Not every piece of this stylistically wide-ranging collection translates easily into the audio format, but Amuka-Bird’s talent cannot be denied. A Penguin hardcover.