Take a photo of a barcode or cover
louissb 's review for:
Small Island
by Andrea Levy
A really impressive book. Much of it is painful to read (as a white Englishman) not only because these attitudes were common only two generations before me, but because this racism, dressed up in the guise of concern about 'respectability' ('this used to be a decent neighbourhood!'), is still common. Levy's prose is superb - the narrative voices of the different characters are so distinct it is hard to believe it is the same writer throughout, and I really liked this structure of conflicting voices with no unifying narrator. The story is, at times, heartbreaking, and I felt that Levy did a fantastic job of expressing the searing injustices of the era with enough objectivity to persuade even the staunchest opposition. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.