![]() ![]() Readers craving the giddy, ebullient (and more traditional) prose of Zadie Smiths previous novels White Teeth or On Beauty will find the detached, juddering sentences that dominates NW much harder to warm too. The novel follows each character, in four successive sections, written in a variety of disorientating styles. We also encounter Felix Cooper (a former drug dealer trying to reform and reshape his life) and Nathan Bogle (a pimp-like dropout who re-sells underground travelcards to make ends meet). ![]() There is Leah Hanwell (directionless, childless, married to a francophone black hairdresser called Michel, who dabbles in trading stocks online) and her childhood best friend Keisha Blake (ambitious, a barrister, has changed her name to Natalie and is now married to a well-to-do half-Italian banker). NW tells the story of four characters who have grown up around the Caldwell housing estate in North West London. ![]() The truth is that NW is a book that is much easier to admire than to love. Philip Hensher says no better English novel will be published this year, or, probably next. Adam Mars-Jones remarks on the real mystery of NW that it falls so far short of being a successful novel. ![]()
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