NW

How to convey how excited I was about getting Zadie Smith's new novel? Let me put it this way, Zadie Smith is one of my all time favorite writers, whose last book is one of my favorite books ever (On Beauty) and I've literally waited for the last seven years for her next novel. And here it is--NW. 

NW is the story of four characters who grow up on the same street, but whose lives take them in very different directions. The novel is broken into sections and each has a distinct style that echos the (psychological) place each character is coming from. NW is not a plot-driven story, but an incredible novel about the confusion these characters face. Zadie Smith said in an interview on the Diane Rehm show that when she began writing this novel, she thought about it as a "black Existentialist" novel. 

I love the way Zadie Smith tackles race in her novels. She said in a different interview with NPR about how she only points out a person's race if they are white, flipping the custom of white writers to point out the race of their black characters: "Everybody's neutral unless they're black — then you hear about it: the black man, the black woman, the black person. Of course, if you happen to be black the world doesn't look that way to you. I just wanted to try and create perhaps a sense of alienation and otherness in this person, the white reader, to remind them that they are not neutral to other people." 

One review said that the novel was wonderful and brilliant but that the reviewer hated the ending. I disagree. I loved this book--including the ending--and had the rare experience of finishing the book and wanting to immediately start reading it again. I've heard people say books have made them want to do so and have never really felt that before, but this book made me want to go back inside it. I'm looking forward to rereading it again. Zadie did not disappoint.