public library and other stories by ali smith

This also comes into play with the use of the term “ex-wife” from the title. She very well could be referring to her partner or, perhaps, to both her partner and to Mansfield. That night I sat down in front of my computer and wrote you an email.” We assume that the first two sentences are referring to Mansfield but, after reading the third sentence, we’re unsure. She was charming.” Does the narrator mean her partner? Does she mean Mansfield? It’s not clear, and Smith plays with this duality throughout.Īfter the narrator meets Mansfield in the park for the first time, for example, the narrator says, “I don’t know who you are but I know who you are. The story is written in first person, with a direct address to the partner, so the partner is always the focus, right from the very beginning: “At first I thought it was just that you really liked books, just that you were someone who really loved your work.” Because the narrator’s partner is also a woman, the use of the direct address and pronouns further intertwine the three characters: “At first I was quite charmed by it. Woolf famously wrote, after Mansfield’s death, “I was jealous of her writing-the only writing I have ever been jealous of.”Īnd jealousy is at the heart of Smith’s story. (A terrific guide to Mansfield’s life and work can be found here.) Although Woolf’s Hogarth Press published Mansfield’s story “Prelude” as their second publication, the two writers were both wary of each other’s talents. Mansfield, who was one of the preeminent modernist short story writers in the early twentieth century, may be best known for her on-again-off-again friendship with Virginia Woolf and for dying early: she died at age thirty-four from complications due to tuberculosis. By having the narrator learn about Mansfield alongside the reader, Smith pays homage to both the writer and the woman. As the relationship sours, the persona of Mansfield appears to the narrator and, through their conversations and her own research, the narrator learns quite a bit about Mansfield, becoming, perhaps, even more of an expert than her partner. The narrator’s partner is a reader and a writer, researching the life and work of Mansfield, and the narrator feels excluded from this part of her partner’s life.

The Fiction Responding to Fiction series considers the influence that a short story has on another writer previous entries can be found here.Ĭould there be a better way to pay homage to an author than to include the writer as a character in the fiction? In Ali Smith’s story “The Ex-Wife,” included in her collection Public Library and Other Stories, the writer Katherine Mansfield is the other woman.

Public library and other stories by ali smith