The Book Reader: 'Swing Time'

Patrik Henry Bass of Essence Magazine checks out Zadie Smith's "Swing Time" in NY1's The Book Reader.

Zadie Smith constantly amazes us with the dexterity of her voice—or better yet, voices. 

Whether she’s reimagining E.M. Forster’s classic Howards End with her third effort, 2005’s On Beauty (Penguin Press), or following the lives of four people growing up in a blighted section of North West London in 2012’s NW (Penguin Press), Smith shifts ideas, places and people like a master juggler.

In Swing Time (Penguin Press, $27), her latest offering, Smith returns to North West London, where she introduces us to Tracey and an unnamed narrator, who meet in 1982 at a dance class. What they share is that they’re both brown girls. What they don’t share is talent.

Tracey has been blessed with moves for days. The narrator? Not so much. However, what our guide can’t physically accomplish with her body, she more than makes up for with an insatiable hunger to understand the idea of dance.

As Tracey’s and the narrator’s paths begin to divide, Smith brings us closer and closer to the richness and intricacies of friendship and fame. The latter morphs into the central theme of the book once the narrator becomes an assistant to Aimee, an Australian pop star who unwittingly clings to her dilettantism with the fervor of a religious fanatic.

As Tracey takes the stage, her brown body defying gravity, the narrator tags along with Aimee to West Africa, where they help establish a girl’s school during a fateful concert tour. 

Along the way, our guide wakes up on race and identity, and we realize that Smith is shaking us up as well. Like with fame, she asks, what is real? And with race and identity, how do we create our own truths and misperceptions? 

They are big questions, which Smith relishes answering.