Genre Fiction
![Zadie Smith - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001D0P4CA.jpg)
NW: A Novel
A 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2012 • One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2012 • One of The Wall Street Journal's Best 10 Fiction Books of 2012 • A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of 2012
"[NW] is that rare thing, a book that is radical and passionate and real." -Anne Enright, The New York Times Book Review
"A triumph . . . As Smith threads together her characters' inner and outer worlds, every sentence sings." -The Guardian
"A powerful portrait of class and identity in multicultural London." -Entertainment Weekly
Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith's brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals-Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan-as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. In private houses and public parks, at work and at play, these Londoners inhabit a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end. Depicting the modern urban zone-familiar to city-dwellers everywhere-NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.
"[NW] is that rare thing, a book that is radical and passionate and real." -Anne Enright, The New York Times Book Review
"A triumph . . . As Smith threads together her characters' inner and outer worlds, every sentence sings." -The Guardian
"A powerful portrait of class and identity in multicultural London." -Entertainment Weekly
Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith's brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals-Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan-as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. In private houses and public parks, at work and at play, these Londoners inhabit a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end. Depicting the modern urban zone-familiar to city-dwellers everywhere-NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.
Editorial Reviews
"A boldly Joycean appropriation, fortunately not so difficult of entry as its great model . . . Like Zadie Smith's much-acclaimed predecessor White Teeth (2000), NW is an urban epic." -Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books
"[NW] is that rare thing, a book that is radical and passionate and real." -Anne Enright, The New York Times Book Review
"Endlessly fascinating . . . remarkable. . . . The impression of Smith's casual brilliance is what constantly surprises, the way she tosses off insights about parenting and work that you've felt in some nebulous way but never been able to articulate." -Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"A marvelously accomplished work, perhaps her most polished yet." -Laura Miller, Salon
"A triumph . . . As Smith threads together her characters' inner and outer worlds, every sentence sings." -The Guardian
"Smith's fiction has never been this deadly, direct, or economical . . . Where gifts are concerned, Smith is generous with hers; she writes, one feels, with our pleasure in mind . . . NW is Zadie Smith's riskiest, meanest, most political and deeply felt book-but it all feels so effortless. She dazzles." -Parul Sehgal, Bookforum
"NW offers a nuanced, disturbing exploration of the boundaries, some porous, some impenetrable, between people living cheek by jowl in urban centers where the widening gap between haves and have-nots has created chasms into which we're all in danger of falling." -NPR.org
"A powerful portrait of class and identity in multicultural London." -Entertainment Weekly
"One of the most interesting portrayals of 30-something womanhood that I've come across in a long time. For other readers, Smith's brilliant eye and idiosyncratic ear should be ample enticement." -Bloomberg News
"A master class in freestyle fiction writing. Smith mashes up voices and vignettes, poetry and instant messaging, bedroom preferences and murder, and keeps it all from collapsing into incoherent mush with deft, dry wit. Smith defines characters worth reading." -Newsday
"Smith's masterful ability to suspend all these bits and parts in the amber which is London refracts light, history, and the humane beauty of seeing everything at once." -Publishers Weekly
"In NW, Smith offers a robust novel bursting with life: a timely exploration of money, morals, class and authenticity that asks if we are ever truly the sole authors of our own fate." -BookPage
"[NW] is that rare thing, a book that is radical and passionate and real." -Anne Enright, The New York Times Book Review
"Endlessly fascinating . . . remarkable. . . . The impression of Smith's casual brilliance is what constantly surprises, the way she tosses off insights about parenting and work that you've felt in some nebulous way but never been able to articulate." -Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"A marvelously accomplished work, perhaps her most polished yet." -Laura Miller, Salon
"A triumph . . . As Smith threads together her characters' inner and outer worlds, every sentence sings." -The Guardian
"Smith's fiction has never been this deadly, direct, or economical . . . Where gifts are concerned, Smith is generous with hers; she writes, one feels, with our pleasure in mind . . . NW is Zadie Smith's riskiest, meanest, most political and deeply felt book-but it all feels so effortless. She dazzles." -Parul Sehgal, Bookforum
"NW offers a nuanced, disturbing exploration of the boundaries, some porous, some impenetrable, between people living cheek by jowl in urban centers where the widening gap between haves and have-nots has created chasms into which we're all in danger of falling." -NPR.org
"A powerful portrait of class and identity in multicultural London." -Entertainment Weekly
"One of the most interesting portrayals of 30-something womanhood that I've come across in a long time. For other readers, Smith's brilliant eye and idiosyncratic ear should be ample enticement." -Bloomberg News
"A master class in freestyle fiction writing. Smith mashes up voices and vignettes, poetry and instant messaging, bedroom preferences and murder, and keeps it all from collapsing into incoherent mush with deft, dry wit. Smith defines characters worth reading." -Newsday
"Smith's masterful ability to suspend all these bits and parts in the amber which is London refracts light, history, and the humane beauty of seeing everything at once." -Publishers Weekly
"In NW, Smith offers a robust novel bursting with life: a timely exploration of money, morals, class and authenticity that asks if we are ever truly the sole authors of our own fate." -BookPage
Readers Top Reviews
Yasmine MotawyHeathe
Smith is clever. She is observant, she says things you thought about but never fully formulated into words. She creates amazing characters, but this time, I feel I could have waited for the paperback.. The lives of the 4 people living in North West London that intertwine and separate and paint the metropolis she is so good at conjuring, are not all interesting or equally well done. I enjoyed following two of the four characters and was almost tempted to flip through the other two. No more spoilers, but while this is still clever articulate Smith, worth reading for the bursts of brilliance that come more frequently in the first half of the book (before the plot itself falls into lazy sleaziness), On Beauty and White Teeth are definitely much better in terms of tightness, construction and plot.
This book got more one-star reviews on Amazon than anything I've ever purchased, but the four and five-star reviews were more thoughtful so I gave it a shot. I wasn't disappointed. The plot seems to act as the backdrop to the novel. It's not linear, clear, or perhaps even all that relevant. The characters, by contrast, are very well developed and the observations of society, class and race are astute. The writing style is unorthodox, which makes for an interesting read overall but feels lazy at points. Certain sections remind me of the shortcuts I would take on writing assignments in school, where I hoped that my lack of full paragraphs would translate as creativity. I dug around a little for the author's take on why she chose her style(s) and found this in a New Yorker blog: "...there is the simple time restraint of having a kid. Four hours a day is as much as I had. I didn't have the time or inclination for sixty-page chapters. The idea of writing at any great length became absurd." That's not very satisfying. There were several other elements of the novel that I found unsatisfying at first, although the more I think about them the more they make sense. I was, for example, frustrated by Shar and Leah's plot line, wondering why it was included at all. After considering it for a few days, however, I've decided that without Shar we wouldn't fully understand Leah. Such is the case with many of the other seemingly tangential characters, and the sometimes vast amount of space devoted to each of their stories is not wasted. This novel gets better for me the longer it sets in. I think it may end up being a favorite, but I would recommend that potential readers, especially fans of White Teeth and On Beauty, adjust their expectations before delving in.
Malory
Just finished NW, and I'm torn. I was engrossed for a good long time, but around the two-thirds mark I started to drift. Yes, I get it -- realistic, portrait of a city and all that -- but vivid description can only disguise lack of plot for so long. It was so character-driven that I don't feel like I have a picture of NW, either. The characterization was awe-inspiring, though; Leah and Natalie were practically alive. And her voice is beautiful. The girl can turn a phrase! The staccato, sentence-fragment thing, though, annoys me after the smallest of doses. It felt real and urgent and "happening now" (kinda now, kinda wow) ... but I guess I prefer to have something to willingly suspend my disbelief about. I demand a MacGuffin! White Teeth is still champeen, as far as I'm concerned. (Just my $.02)
Christopher Junker
An absorbing story of four friends who grew up in NW section of London, an impoverished area of immigrants. The novel has been compared to Ulysses, a rather carless comparison I think but it is not hard to believe that Ms Smith was influenced by it. In any case the book is rather constructed like a bustling street scene with many conversations and actions bubbling up and gaining your attention subsiding as another surfaces and it makes for a rather musical read which I enjoyed though people who like a more structured novel or at least story arc will find it difficult going.
Sally
This book took me a long while to work through, but ultimately, I was astounded by Smith's story. I would pause frequently to catch my breath at some of her descriptions, because she manages to articulate things that I didn't know were articulable. This novel is raw (but readable), sad, profound, and full of humanity. I originally picked it up because it's set in London and I was aware of Smith being unconventional and Modern in her story-telling...but wow, what a gift she has! Her style alternately evoked Joyce and Woolf and Morrison and Atwood for me while reading, and in the end what emerges is a clearly well-read but totally original and multidimensional storyteller who matches style to substance. If that's the sort of literary fiction you might find compelling, I recommend reading NW.
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
The fat sun stalls by the phone masts. Anti-climb paint turns sulphurous on school gates and lampposts. In Willesden people go barefoot, the streets turn European, there is a mania for eating outside. She keeps to the shade. Redheaded. On the radio: I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me. A good line-write it out on the back of a magazine. In a hammock, in the garden of a basement flat. Fenced in, on all sides.
Four gardens along, in the estate, a grim girl on the third floor screams Anglo-Saxon at nobody. Juliet balcony, projecting for miles. It ain't like that. Nah it ain't like that. Don't you start. Fag in hand. Fleshy, lobster-red.
I am the sole
I am the sole author
Pencil leaves no mark on magazine pages. Somewhere she has read that the gloss gives you cancer. Everyone knows it shouldn't be this hot. Shriveled blossom and bitter little apples. Birds singing the wrong tunes in the wrong trees too early in the year. Don't you bloody start! Look up: the girl's burned paunch rests on the railing. Here's what Michel likes to say: not everyone can be invited to the party. Not this century. Cruel opinion-she doesn't share it. In marriage not everything is shared. Yellow sun high in the sky. Blue cross on a white stick, clear, definitive. What to do? Michel is at work. He is still at work.
I am the
the sole
Ash drifts into the garden below, then comes the butt, then the box. Louder than the birds and the trains and the traffic. Sole sign of sanity: a tiny device tucked in her ear. I told im stop takin liberties. Where's my cheque? And she's in my face chattin breeze. Fuckin liberty.
I am the sole. The sole. The sole
She unfurls her fist, lets the pencil roll. Takes her liberty. Nothing else to listen to but this bloody girl. At least with eyes closed there is something else to see. Viscous black specks. Darting water boatmen, zig-zagging. Zig. Zag. Red river? Molten lake in hell? The hammock tips. The papers flop to the ground. World events and property and film and music lie in the grass. Also sport and the short descriptions of the dead.
2
Doorbell! She stumbles through the grass barefoot, sun-huddled, drowsy. The back door leads to a poky kitchen, tiled brightly in the taste of a previous tenant. The bell is not being rung. It is being held down.
In the textured glass, a body, blurred. Wrong collection of pixels to be Michel. Between her body and the door, the hallway floorboards, golden in reflected sun. This hallway can only lead to good things. Yet a woman is screaming PLEASE and crying. A woman thumps the front door with her fist. Pulling the lock aside, she finds it stops halfway, the chain pulls tight, and a little hand f lies through the gap.
– PLEASE-oh my God help me-please Miss, I live here-I live just here, please God-check, please-
Dirty nails. Waving a gas bill? Phone bill? Pushed through the opening, past the chain, so close she must draw back to focus on what she is being shown. 37 Ridley Avenue-a street on the corner of her own. This is all she reads. She has a quick vision of Michel as he would be if he were here, examining the envelope's plastic window, checking on credentials. Michel is at work. She releases the chain.
The stranger's knees go, she falls forward, crumpling. Girl or woman? They're the same age: thirties, mid-way, or thereabouts. Tears shake the stranger's little body. She pulls at her clothes and wails. Woman begging the public for witnesses. Woman in a warzone standing in the rubble of her home.
– You're hurt?
Her hands are in her hair. Her head collides with the doorframe.
– Nah, not me, my mum-I need some help. I've been to every fuckin door-please. Shar-my name is Shar. I'm local. I live here. Check!
– Come in. Please. I'm Leah.
Leah is as faithful in her allegiance to this two-mile square of the city as other people are to their families, or their countries. She knows the way people speak around here, that fuckin, around here, is only a rhythm in a sentence. She arranges her face to signify compassion. Shar closes her eyes, nods. She makes quick movements with her mouth, inaudible, speaking to herself. To Leah she says
– You're so good.
Shar's diaphragm rises and falls, slower now. The shuddering tears wind down.
– Thank you, yeah? You're so good.
Shar's small hands grip the hands that support her. Shar is tiny. Her skin looks papery and dry, with patches of psoriasis on the forehead and on the jaw. The face is familiar. Leah has seen this face many times in these streets. A peculiarity of London villages: faces without names. The eyes are memorable, around the deep brown clear white is visible, above and below. A...
The fat sun stalls by the phone masts. Anti-climb paint turns sulphurous on school gates and lampposts. In Willesden people go barefoot, the streets turn European, there is a mania for eating outside. She keeps to the shade. Redheaded. On the radio: I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me. A good line-write it out on the back of a magazine. In a hammock, in the garden of a basement flat. Fenced in, on all sides.
Four gardens along, in the estate, a grim girl on the third floor screams Anglo-Saxon at nobody. Juliet balcony, projecting for miles. It ain't like that. Nah it ain't like that. Don't you start. Fag in hand. Fleshy, lobster-red.
I am the sole
I am the sole author
Pencil leaves no mark on magazine pages. Somewhere she has read that the gloss gives you cancer. Everyone knows it shouldn't be this hot. Shriveled blossom and bitter little apples. Birds singing the wrong tunes in the wrong trees too early in the year. Don't you bloody start! Look up: the girl's burned paunch rests on the railing. Here's what Michel likes to say: not everyone can be invited to the party. Not this century. Cruel opinion-she doesn't share it. In marriage not everything is shared. Yellow sun high in the sky. Blue cross on a white stick, clear, definitive. What to do? Michel is at work. He is still at work.
I am the
the sole
Ash drifts into the garden below, then comes the butt, then the box. Louder than the birds and the trains and the traffic. Sole sign of sanity: a tiny device tucked in her ear. I told im stop takin liberties. Where's my cheque? And she's in my face chattin breeze. Fuckin liberty.
I am the sole. The sole. The sole
She unfurls her fist, lets the pencil roll. Takes her liberty. Nothing else to listen to but this bloody girl. At least with eyes closed there is something else to see. Viscous black specks. Darting water boatmen, zig-zagging. Zig. Zag. Red river? Molten lake in hell? The hammock tips. The papers flop to the ground. World events and property and film and music lie in the grass. Also sport and the short descriptions of the dead.
2
Doorbell! She stumbles through the grass barefoot, sun-huddled, drowsy. The back door leads to a poky kitchen, tiled brightly in the taste of a previous tenant. The bell is not being rung. It is being held down.
In the textured glass, a body, blurred. Wrong collection of pixels to be Michel. Between her body and the door, the hallway floorboards, golden in reflected sun. This hallway can only lead to good things. Yet a woman is screaming PLEASE and crying. A woman thumps the front door with her fist. Pulling the lock aside, she finds it stops halfway, the chain pulls tight, and a little hand f lies through the gap.
– PLEASE-oh my God help me-please Miss, I live here-I live just here, please God-check, please-
Dirty nails. Waving a gas bill? Phone bill? Pushed through the opening, past the chain, so close she must draw back to focus on what she is being shown. 37 Ridley Avenue-a street on the corner of her own. This is all she reads. She has a quick vision of Michel as he would be if he were here, examining the envelope's plastic window, checking on credentials. Michel is at work. She releases the chain.
The stranger's knees go, she falls forward, crumpling. Girl or woman? They're the same age: thirties, mid-way, or thereabouts. Tears shake the stranger's little body. She pulls at her clothes and wails. Woman begging the public for witnesses. Woman in a warzone standing in the rubble of her home.
– You're hurt?
Her hands are in her hair. Her head collides with the doorframe.
– Nah, not me, my mum-I need some help. I've been to every fuckin door-please. Shar-my name is Shar. I'm local. I live here. Check!
– Come in. Please. I'm Leah.
Leah is as faithful in her allegiance to this two-mile square of the city as other people are to their families, or their countries. She knows the way people speak around here, that fuckin, around here, is only a rhythm in a sentence. She arranges her face to signify compassion. Shar closes her eyes, nods. She makes quick movements with her mouth, inaudible, speaking to herself. To Leah she says
– You're so good.
Shar's diaphragm rises and falls, slower now. The shuddering tears wind down.
– Thank you, yeah? You're so good.
Shar's small hands grip the hands that support her. Shar is tiny. Her skin looks papery and dry, with patches of psoriasis on the forehead and on the jaw. The face is familiar. Leah has seen this face many times in these streets. A peculiarity of London villages: faces without names. The eyes are memorable, around the deep brown clear white is visible, above and below. A...
