"goes further than any of Smith's recent work in robustly answering this charge. While the Seasonal Quartet playfully anatomised the social fracture of post-Brexit Britain, and immediate predecessor Gliff dealt with the violence of the securitised state, Glyph, in its explicit engagement with the Israeli government's apartheid and genocide in Palestine, raises the ethical stakes decisively. To engage in a Smithian pun this is Art in the Age of Mechanical Mass Destruction."
"But it was their names rather than their characterisation that lingered with me long after reading. Petra, from the Greek for stone, with its echoes of scale, solidity, authority; contrasting with Patch, meaning to repair, with its echoes of care, survival, persistence. In a novel so actively engaged with one of the longest and deadliest military occupations in modern history, their names provide a perpetual and deeply affecting drumbeat, stark and dissonant."
Glyph follows sisters Petra and Patch as they reflect on childhood attempts to grapple with the finality of death after losing their mother. The narrative explicitly engages with the Israeli government's apartheid and genocide in Palestine, elevating the ethical stakes beyond earlier works. Language and etymology function as central instruments, with names and word histories carrying resonant political and emotional weight. Petra evokes stone, scale and authority, while Patch suggests repair, care and persistence, creating a persistent, dissonant drumbeat. Two central images draw potency from everyday horror, and the novel foregrounds moral urgency in response to expansionist violence.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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