Book: Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Swing Time is a story of identity, stereotype, expectation and self-destruction. Smith sets up two biracial girls raised in similar circumstances by very different parents and then follows them from girlhood and into their 30's. They start off mostly on an even playing field, but over the course of the novel, we realize that the parts that they play in their lives are as self-created as anything else and that, in the end, they turn out to be their own worse enemy.

The unnamed narrator, our primary protagonist, is ever in tension with her purported BFF, Tracy. Even when Tracy isn't around, it's like some kind of weird competition. Tracy is obviously the shadow self, the Id and their connection over the years was an oddity to me. This is a book populated with unlikable characters: from the self-reverentially blind protagonist, damaged Tracy, privileged popstar Amy and the protagonist's ambitious and intellectual mother. Everyone in Swing Time is selfish and that made the book a really hard sell for me.
( Read more... )