Misadventures (16 page)

I
t was a lovely summer's day and I was walking to the shops in the High Road. As I turned a corner I saw a man bending over the boot of his car, packing various bags inside. He was wearing short white shorts. As I approached him I noticed a large, dark-brown stain on the linen covering the middle of his cheeks. I decided he had a touch of diarrhoea and had broken wind without realising he was spraying his clothing. I made no comment but my mind ran away with me. I wondered if perhaps he was going to the coast for the day and when he would discover his soiled apparel.

I have now completed this book and I am taking it to an agent for him to decide whether or not it's worth publishing, and I wonder if this is yet another misadventure. I will just have to wait and see.

More praise for
Misadventures

‘There is something compelling about this chronicle of ordinariness as the years roll past with anecdotes of chance encounters at supermarket checkouts, minor illnesses, unfortunate investments and unsuccessful romances … a humorous and ultimately poignant read.'
The Bookseller

‘
Misadventures
is essentially a most peculiar autobiography. The crushing mundanity of it all becomes strangely involving and Smith's matter of fact, deadpan delivery makes for oddly engaging reading.'
The List

‘As a kind of blank prose it is engaging. As literature it seems like a control experiment, a series of words devoid of the stylistic devices you expect. Somehow that doesn't prevent it from being often howlingly funny.'
Scotland on Sunday
.

‘I could not put down her unusual, deflated, hilarious book. It deserves to be a best-seller. But, if the rest of her life is anything to go by, it will be a flop.'
Observer

‘Is it utterly banal or fascinating?'
Express

‘Frank, funny and often farcical, Sylvia Smith's first book has been hailed as a middle-aged answer to
Sex and the City
. This book is so deadpan, and the scenes she describes so extraordinarily ordinary, this is one of the most unusual you are likely to come across.'
Sunday Express

‘Like Fielding, Sylvia Smith has produced a comic chronicle of the daft boyfriends, embarrassing medical examinations, lopsided friendships and retail mishaps of an ordinary woman.'
Evening Standard

‘It's a litany of small talk that somehow comes together to form a life. There's something very beguiling about
Misadventures.' The Big Issue (Scotland)

‘Tipped to become this year's bestseller.'
The Week

‘It manages, in an odd, inconsequential way, to be quite funny, and definitely memorable. It is certainly unlike anything else currently being published, which lends a sense of freshness, even originality, to the flat prose and uneventful anecdotes … Against all odds, Sylvia Smith has written something really interesting.'
The Big Issue

‘So far,
Misadventures
has had critics flummoxed – yet they're all talking about it and it's fast becoming cult reading. The unvarnished story of life as lived by
silent millions, there's something unusually genuine about it.'
Daily Mail

‘Told in a series of vignettes, each incident is a real-life misadventure – some amusing, some horrific, some banal, but all identifiable, engaging and in their own way fascinating. It's not the entries here it's the cumulative effect that echoes on long after you've finished the book.'
Buzz

‘She tells the facts as she sees them, and her honesty and humour make it all work.'
Bizarre

‘Sylvia talks rather like Dot Cotton, only a lot more slowly. Sylvia talks like Don Cotton on temazepam … Sylvia isn't your average literary sensation. Sylvia is very, very un-Zadie.'
Independent

‘Sometimes sad, often funny, sometimes merely staggering in its banality – moreover, unquestionably well-written – the one thing this book never feels is “ordinary”.'
New Statesman

‘In a world where everyone must be someone, where a religion of pop psychology demands success from those who are no-one, where popular fiction has become a wilderness of hype and turgid syntax, where literary works are more about the author's contacts than the content, Sylvia Smith is a breath of fresh air and surprises with an oasis of the ordinary.'
Irish Independent

Born in East London to working-class parents as the Second World War was drawing to a close, Sylvia Smith ducked out of a career in hairdressing at the last minute to begin a life of office work. She slowly and completely accidentally worked her way up to the position of private secretary. She is unmarried with no children. A driving licence and a school swimming certificate are her only qualifications, although she is also quite good at dressmaking.
Misadventures
is her first book.