Autumn by Ali Smith

Whenever I read and Ali Smith book, which is a surprisingly frequent occurrence because of her propensity to be long listed for the Booker Prize, I feel like I am not quite smart enough to read her.  I enjoy her, none-the-less.  The first part of that is that her prose is so engaging, and her dialogues so real and so funny that I wish I were in the room with the characters who are bantering back and forth.
Speaking of back and forth, the book ricochets from past to present throughout in a way that reveals more than it annoys.  The present is post-Brexit  Britain and reveals what the future holds through the relationship between Elisabeth and Daniel Gluck, a much older neighbor with whom she formed an immediate friendship as a child.  Daniel is remarkable and Elisabeth correctly places him in an important place in both her intellectual life and her personal development.
The jumps back in time serve both to put modern history in context and to construct the remarkable friendship between Elisabeth and Daniel, who becomes her babysitter of sorts while her mother leaves for possibly unsavory pursuits. Daniel introduces her to the work of Pauline Boty, another central figure in the book, and a real Pop Artist who died in 1966, at the age of 28.  The book is a quick read that will keep you thinking long after you close the cover.