DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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Identity politics have been with us for longer than we might think
IN FORM: Koushik Banerjea
[http://koushikbanerjea.co.uk/]
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Category Unknown
by Koushik Banerjea
London Books £9.99
KOUSHIK BANERJEA’S fascinating second novel is a multilayered story of complex characters caught in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions as Britain moves into the era of Thatcherism and beyond.
Beginning in the late 1970s, it follows the fortunes of four intertwined young people: D and Conrad, who’ve grown up on the same south-east London council estate; Roxy, privately educated somewhere nearby; and Laura, a Spanish student recently arrived in England.
White, black, brown and foreign respectively, they each move chippily into adulthood unsure of who or what they want to be, often disconnected from family, looking askance at the choices of others and fervently opposed to being pigeonholed, yet struggling to fix themselves with any kind of purpose in life.
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CAL McBRIDE relishes the lyrical truth of an unstable identity in an over-tidy and conventional social realist treatment
ROGER McKENZIE draws attention to the much-neglected oral traditions of the global South that define the identity – and therefore the liberation – of its custodians
ANDY HEDGECOCK is astonished by a portrait of contemporary Greece, complete with political protest, organised crime and people trafficking, told from the point of view of — wait for it — runaway poultry
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying