The other one being The Nix, which I actually enjoyed more. This is the second "literary" work I've read recently that felt like a series of disconnected but beautifully-written pieces, all floating around without direction or focus. Swing Time skims the surface of these topics but, for me, it doesn't do anything truly memorable with any of them. She brings themes of race, gender, colonialism, capitalism, celebrity culture, and dance theory and mixes them all together, touching on each in turn but leaving all of them a little flat. But oh my, does she waffle on about everything. Her social commentary is witty and insightful, her detailed and complex characters drive her work, her little observations about human nature ring true. Smith is, in some ways, a fantastic writer. I saw a comment somewhere that summarized my feelings on Smith's novels: she should write less, say more. This is my second Zadie Smith book and I find myself disappointed once again. It is a story about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it. It’s a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either.īursting with energy, rhythm and movement, Swing Time is Zadie Smith’s most ambitious novel yet. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. Two brown girls dream of being dancers – but only one, Tracey, has talent. SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017Ī dazzlingly exubera nt new novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty ‘There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith’ Telegraph ‘A tale of two girls who meet in a West London dance class… A page-turner that’s also beautifully written ‘ Glamour ‘Superb’ Financial Times ‘Breathtaking’ TLS ‘P itch-perfect’ Daily Telegraph Extraordinary, truly marvellous’ Observer
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