How to be both, by Ali Smith

Experimental literary fiction which was by turns amazing and annoying.  There are two interrelated tales here, one set in 2014, the other in 1460.  Evidently, copies of the novel vary as to which story is first in the book.  In mine, it was the current one – sixteen year old George, short for Georgia, reflects on the visit she, her younger brother, and her mother took to see a fresco  in Ferrara Italy shortly before her mother’s untimely death, as she tries to deal with this tremendous loss.  In the second half, we see George through the eyes of the little-known artist of the fresco.  The first part is rather pedestrian but well written.  The second has many flashes of brilliant writing, but one has to work really hard to figure out what is going on.  I found it rather exhausting.  372 pp.