Editors Reads Verdict
Smith's most formally inventive novel and the Baileys Women's Prize winner — the dual-time structure is not decoration but argument, about how art mediates between the living and the dead.
What We Loved
- The formal conceit — different print runs organised differently — makes the reading experience genuinely differ by copy
- The Renaissance painter's voice is a remarkable achievement: anachronistic and exact simultaneously
- The grief sections are among the most honest accounts of adolescent bereavement in contemporary fiction
Minor Drawbacks
- The formal playfulness can feel like a distraction from the emotional core
- Some readers find the Renaissance sections harder to inhabit than the contemporary narrative
Key Takeaways
- → Art mediates between the living and the dead — the frescoes Francescho painted 500 years ago still see the people who look at them
- → Grief in adolescence is not more or less intense than adult grief — it is differently located, without the structures that adult life provides
- → The novel as form can hold two times simultaneously — this is what distinguishes it from film or music
| Author | Ali Smith |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Pantheon |
| Pages | 372 |
| Published | September 1, 2014 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction |
| Difficulty | Advanced |
| Best For | Readers of experimental literary fiction and anyone interested in how formal structure can carry emotional argument. |
Two Stories
How to Be Both was published in two forms: half of the print run begins with the story of Francescho del Cossa, a real Renaissance fresco painter from Ferrara whose work survives in the Palazzo Schifanoia; the other half begins with George, a contemporary Cambridge teenager whose mother has recently died. Which story the reader encounters first changes the meaning of the second.
Francescho, in the Renaissance sections, is rendered in an unusual second-person voice — direct, slightly anachronistic, full of the specific sensory world of 15th-century painting. George, in the contemporary sections, is grieving: for her mother, for the self that existed when her mother was alive, for the answers to questions she never asked.
The Argument About Art
Smith’s formal conceit is not playful for its own sake. The argument of How to Be Both is that art (specifically painting, and specifically Francescho’s frescoes) persists across time in a way that creates a form of contact between the living and the dead. George visits the frescoes in Ferrara with her mother shortly before her mother’s death. Francescho’s consciousness inhabits the novel alongside George’s. The dead painter and the grieving girl are somehow in conversation.
The novel won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2015.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "How to Be Both" about?
Two narratives, two times: a Renaissance fresco painter in 15th-century Ferrara; a contemporary Cambridge teenager grieving her mother. The two stories are printed in different orders in different editions — some readers encounter the Renaissance story first, others the contemporary one. The novel's question: how to be both past and present, both alive and dead.
Who should read "How to Be Both"?
Readers of experimental literary fiction and anyone interested in how formal structure can carry emotional argument.
What are the key takeaways from "How to Be Both"?
Art mediates between the living and the dead — the frescoes Francescho painted 500 years ago still see the people who look at them Grief in adolescence is not more or less intense than adult grief — it is differently located, without the structures that adult life provides The novel as form can hold two times simultaneously — this is what distinguishes it from film or music
Is "How to Be Both" worth reading?
Smith's most formally inventive novel and the Baileys Women's Prize winner — the dual-time structure is not decoration but argument, about how art mediates between the living and the dead.
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