Reviews with content warning for Murder - NW

why was Nathan Bogel a person of interest re: Felix's death? I don't understand the connection Keisha drew there. Did she just want to reinforce her own classist bs? Did I miss something? tf

Unfortunately it's due back at the library so I might have to stew in it for a while

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absolutive's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is an outstanding novel. It is told in four parts. Each part follows a different character from a council estate and is told in a different style. The stories are intimately connected, and together they form a vivid tale of North West (NW) London and its people of colour as they approach middle age and consider their own identities and lives. The novel centres the very people and locations too often consigned to the periphery; but of course each of these people is "the sole author of the dictionary that defines" them, in Zadie Smith's words.

The first part of the novel is stream of conscious, and follows Leah, a mixed race woman in her late 30s. She is university educated and married to a French-Algerian immigrant who works as a hair stylist. Their story is about reproduction and petty crimes committed against them. If we read this section carefully, we realise that the point of view character of the next section is introduced and one of the crimes is part of a larger plot throughout the novel. The second section is the story of a Black man's life who matters (like all Black men!), and the multitudinous world that is a life which gets flattened by a headline. Zadie Smith inverts a normal plot arc with this character and this section, but I don't want to elaborate and give it away. This section is inspired by Flaubert's "A Simple Heart." (Its point of view character even has the English version of the same name.) The third section is devoted to a friend of Leah's. It's told as a series of numbered short prose pieces, like a list from this eyes-on-the-prize character or some famous works of philosophy, the subject Leah studies. Smith is influenced by existentialism in this novel, as well, as the characters question their identities and essences as they come to terms with approaching their forties. This friend changes everything about herself to "raise" herself out of her estate and into a new class, as she becomes a successful lawyer with a stereotypical ideal Black family-- including changing her name. Even her sordid secret is really about seeing where and how people live, another way to compare herself to others. The final section connects this character to a classmate of hers and Leah's; and in sharing his story, Smith illuminates something from the second section and the first.

In each section the sense of time is different, the narration, the point of view, how dialogue is rendered. The novel's structure has a wonderful effect of making North West London, the principal characters and the people they interact with, clear and present and central. London is like a character in the novel. In fact, with the stream of consciousness and an urban centre vividly described, with clues throughout the sections available to find, NW reminds me of Ulysses, though shorter, inclusive, and telling tales of those we often render silent.

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