The Black Album

"The conflict between assimilation and ethnic pride animates this vigorous picaresque by the Pakistani-born English screenwriter...and author....The novel's loose construction leads it to a predictably open-ended conclusion, but that's seems perfectly appropriate for a coming-of-age tale whose unformed hero can't decide from one moment to the next whether he's to become a dutiful son and brother, a great novelist, or the happily exhausted boytoy of a splendidly voracious woman. Furthermore, Kureishi's ever-so-slightly aslant diction and syntax provide dozens of gratifying little surprises, as do his vivid, off-the-wall metaphors....An agreeable mess, but then so is the protagonist--an endearingly distracted pursuer of the Ultimate Good who likes just as well the taste and feel of the here and now."Hanif Kureishi is the author of 'The Black Album' with ISBN 9780571203925 and ISBN 0571203922.