‘Gliff’ is a word which can mean ‘a short moment’, ‘a wallop’, and ‘a post-ejaculatory sex act’; to ‘dispel snow’, ‘to frighten’, and to ‘escape something quickly’. It’s ‘really excitingly polysemous’, says one of Ali Smith’s characters. It’s certainly an apt title for a book which can’t seem to define itself.
At its centre are two children, Briar and Rose, who have been abandoned. Their mother is absent, caring for a sick sister, and their other responsible adult leaves to find her. The children exist in a stock dystopian world (people are surveilled by CCTV cameras and zombified by screens) with a twist: they repeatedly wake up to find that a red line has been painted around their house or camper van.
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