A review by sarahmatthews
NW by Zadie Smith

medium-paced

NW by Zadie Smith

Read in Braille

Hamish Hamilton

Pub. 2012, 337pp

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I thought I’d read all of Zadie Smith’s backlist until I read Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson recently and NW features in it as a favourite book by the main character. So I ordered it in Braille straight away. I love Zadie Smith’s writing which is smart, witty and sharp. She just has a way of expressing herself  that appeals to me. It probably helps that she’s only a few years older, so many of her pop culture references from the 90s and early2000s are spot on for me. 

This novel is firmly rooted in a small area of north west London, around Kilburn and Willesden and the fictional Caldwell estate where her characters grew up. I remember this area from when I lived a stop north on the Jubilee Line, in Dollis Hill. I definitely think that readers who are at least a bit familiar with this neighbourhood will connect more closely with the novel. It also had details that root it to it’s publication date, as I’d forgotten that in 2012 we used physical tickets on the tube instead of Oyster Cards, and that touts would hover by the stations and offer second hand tickets for a couple of quid.

Travel is an important part of the novel, whether by bus, train or walking.Here, towards the start, Leah’s taking the tube with her chatty mother, Pauline, who knows everyone’s business:

“Leah lifts two free papers from the pile as the train pulls out because reding is silent… The window logs Kilburn’s skyline. Ungentrified, ungentrifiable. Boom and bust never come here. Here bust is permanent. Empty State Empire, empty Odeon, graffiti-streaked sidings rising and falling like a rickety roller coaster … Behind the opposite window, retreating Willesden. Number 37. In the 1880s or thereabouts the whole thing went up at once—houses, churches, schools, cemeteries—an optimistic vision of metroland.”

We follow the lives of Leah and Keisha (later reinvented as Natalie) who’re best mates at school, drift apart for a while and are reunited in their early 20s.

The book is divided into three sections which are loosely connected. A name, Felix, that comes up at a party to celebrate the Notting Hill Carnival becomes the main character of the second section and I’m glad I was reading this book at bedtime when I was calm and paying attention because this could have easily passed me by and I’d have been left confused by the change of perspective. The third section is concerned with Natalie’s life, including her history with Leah, her career as a lawyer and her marriage, and is experimental in that it’s told through little numbered vignettes which is quite a change of pace.

Zadie Smith explores how growing up in poverty affects the lives of these characters in different ways, encompassing issues of class, racism, sexism, marriage, motherhood, street crime and drug culture. She’s highlighting the fact that coincidences and assumptions abound as we live our lives, and that we make judgements according to our biases. There’s a lot going on here and a reread might be in order now I understand the structure. I found it to be one of her best books and need to find someone who’s read it to discuss the ending with!