It is lit-fiction season: that time of the year of when the premier novelists of the age dominate the market. Ian McEwan, Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, Sebastian Faulks and Rose Tremain all have new books out, and Salman Rushdie’s much anticipated memoirs are to be launched this week, so many newspapers are devoting themselves to regurgitating stale observations about The Satanic Verses ahead of the main and keenly guarded event.
Of the new books, Zadie Smith’s NW is garnering the most plaudits, or at least that seems to be the case. Philip Hensher awarded the ‘rich and varied’ book 5 stars in his Telegraph review, marking the ‘virtuosity of Smith’s technique’ for special praise and revelling in Smith’s conscientious ear for listening to the way people speak. And the Spectator’s Ian Thomson applauded a ‘mesmeric story of social self-improvement, ambition and dashed hopes.’
For those who haven’t heard, NW is situated in the familiar territory of Smithborough — those mixed London communities where affluence and want co-exist uneasily.
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