Det er et umage venskab, Daniel Gluck og Elisabeth Demand har. Daniel er 101 år gammel, og Elisabeth er 32. I fortællingens nutid, umiddelbart efter Brexit-afstemningen, møder Elisabeth trofast op på det plejehjem, hvor Daniel ligger og venter på at dø. For mange år siden, da de mødtes i 1993, advarede hendes mor hende om at pleje kontakt med den mærkelige nabo, der var flyttet ind over for dem. Men Elisabeth nægter at rette sig efter moderen, og ud af den insisteren på relationer mellem mennesker vokser et venskab, som forfatteren Ali Smith bruger som udgangspunkt for sin fortælling om England af i dag.
Efterår er første bog i en kvartet af Ali Smith. Næste udgivelse, Vinter, udkommer i begyndelsen af 2019.
Ali Smith is a writer, born in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine Mslexia, she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and how it forced her to give up her job as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde to focus on what she really wanted to do: writing. She has been with her partner Sarah Wood for 17 years and dedicates all her books to her.