The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith's new book “The Fraud” is many things. It's a historical novel primarily set in 19th century London and Jamaica; it's a courtroom drama; it's about an unusual love triangle; it's about the ambition of novelists with some delicious appearances by Charles Dickens who makes bad jokes; it's about the end of slavery in Jamaica; and it's about what happens to truth when viewed through the lens of politics, the media, public debate and the craft of fiction. The story concerns a now semi-obscure historical novelist William Harrison Ainsworth (some of his titles outsold Dickens at the time) and The Tichborne Case, a famous trial that ran from the 1860s to the 1870s concerning a man who claimed to be a missing heir. Though this legal battle captivated the public at the time it's also now nearly forgotten. Between the author and the trial there is this novel's central character Eliza, a widow who is in some ways financially dependent upon Ainsworth. She is his housekeeper and reader. She's an abolitionist who forms a bond with Andrew Bogle, a man born into slavery who is one of the trial's key witnesses. Also, Eliza is fond of a long walk during which she observes Victorian London in tantalizing detail.

Eliza is a shrewd observer sitting in on discussions amongst prominent literary circles and watching the statements made in the courtroom by men whose demeanour often says more than their words. In this way we get a sly view beyond the surface of these interactions and the male dominated society surrounding her. However, as the novel progresses Eliza becomes a figure of intrigue herself. Between her intimate bond with William's deceased first wife Frances, a one-time intimacy with William himself and her late husband's illegitimate family, we get flashes of the truth Eliza either can't or won't openly accept. As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time we follow her journey towards acknowledging the reality of her personal life as well as the larger politics of her society. However, it's challenging to do this when there is so much unconscious misunderstanding and wilful deception surrounding her. She observes how “We mistake each other. Our whole social arrangement a series of mistakes and compromises. Shorthand for a mystery too large to be seen.” With so much confusion concerning what's true about other people's lives, acting in an ethical way can be extremely difficult.

In part, the novel is about how fiction comes to eclipse reality and how public consensus can eclipse truth. William writes historical novels which are based more in his imagination and stereotypes than facts. In this way readers come to know figures from the past through his distortion of the truth. Equally, “The Claimant” at the centre of The Tichborne Case achieves a large following that believes and partly funds his legal defence. Their faith in his claim is partly supported by Andrew Bogle's staunch conviction that “the Claimant” is the heir who went missing at sea. But how can Andrew's understanding of the truth be comprehended without knowing his own backstory or the legacy of slavery that was part of the British colonial empire? Eliza becomes the lynchpin towards seeing through the sensationalism of the case – partly because she has empathy enough to try to get to know Andrew himself. As his fascinating backstory is divulged, Smith shows the more complex personal realities at play within the more prominent public debates.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Smith about her new novel at a pre-publication event.

It's intriguing how this is a historical novel which seems to be critiquing historical novels themselves, the profession of writing and literary circles in general. At the beginning of one chapter, Eliza hilariously reflects: “God preserve me from novel-writing, thought Mrs Touchet, God preserve me from that tragic indulgence, that useless vanity, that blindness!” She sees how William's ambition to write removed him from being more fully involved with his family life (his first wife and his daughters) and his romanticisation of historical events distorts many people's understanding of history. Sitting in on their literary salons she's also privy to the pretensions and backstabbing which occurs amongst authors. In particular, Dickens is shown in quite a critical light. Smith seems highly attentive to the shortcomings of her profession and colleagues while also attempting to show in this novel what the best kind of fiction can do: expand readers' empathy and broaden their point of view to see the larger complexity of things. It's a tricky tightrope to walk and, for the most part, she gets the right balance.

Though Eliza is a highly sympathetic character who exhibits a lot of goodness, by the end of the novel it's shown she has her own shortcomings and areas of blindness. I enjoyed the way the story even gives a rounded view of such side characters as Sarah (the second Mrs Ainsworth) and Henry (Andrew Bogle's son). Their lives are fully fleshed out in many different scenes with witty dialogue and sharp observations. However, the structure of the novel is perhaps a bit too ambitious as it covers a lot of ground over a long period of time. It comes to feel a little unwieldy as the reader is continuously pulled into the past while the narrative also tries to delineate the complex events of the present. However, overall the story contains many moments of pleasure and it's a tale which leaves the reader with a lot to ponder. Like all the best historical fiction, it sparks a curiosity to want to read and understand more about some forgotten corners of the past.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

“Swing Time” is being published this month, but I first read it in July because I had the great honour of being invited to interview Zadie Smith at this wonderful preview event. Having been a long time fan of Smith’s writing, it’s so interesting to see how this new novel differs from her other books in some ways but also develops further some of her most prevalent themes. Many of her novels give equal time and focus to several characters, yet “Swing Time” is written entirely from the perspective of a single nameless narrator. This gives the novel a more nostalgic feel because it vividly recounts an adolescent girl coming of age during the 1980s in North London. She befriends an energetic girl named Tracey (because their skin colour is similar) who claims her absent father is a backup dancer for Michael Jackson. The girls develop a love of dancing in a class and through watching scenes from Old Hollywood musicals that often involve Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers or semi-obscure African American actress Jeni LeGon. The novel follows the gradual breakup of their friendship and the narrator’s early adulthood when she works as a personal assistant for a famous pop star who wants to found a school for girls in West Africa. Eventually these two aspects of the story weave together showing how the narrator arrives at a crisis point. It’s an extremely engaging and intelligent novel about friendship, racial identity and our perception of time.

Central to the narrator's life are three strong-minded, wilful and (some might say) difficult women: friend Tracey, the narrator’s (nameless) feminist mother and the pop star Aimee. Tracey is a wilful girl who often leads the narrator and their friends into delinquent behaviour. It’s easy relating how as an adolescent you would be easily drawn to but secretly repulsed by her behaviour. It’s also touching the way Smith relates how at that age you overlook obvious lies that friends sometimes tell you so as not to embarrass them. There are also startling scenes involving abusive sexual behaviour from schoolboys towards the girls at their school. Smith delicately handles how the girls were not simply victims to this outrageous behaviour, but in some cases participated in it. This definitely doesn’t excuse the behaviour of the boys, but shows the complexity of burgeoning sexuality. It’s also skilfully presented how their friendship ebbs and flows until a point at which the girls’ paths in life sharply split apart. 

The narrator’s mother (who also remains nameless) is an absolutely fascinating individual. She's one of those characters I find utterly compelling to read about, but I'd be terrified of meeting her in real life because she can verbally cut people to shreds and often does. She has an impatient attitude towards all the usual domestic duties and interests that other women (such as Tracey’s mother) on the council estate engage in. Instead she spends as much time as possible reading, educating herself and developing social projects such as a hilariously disastrous scene where she tries to turn a square of grass on the estate into a community garden for local children. As well as being fiercely driven and community minded (even when it goes against the opinions of those around her) she has a touching vulnerable side which comes out especially when her partner’s children from a previous marriage arrive at their apartment one day.

Finally, Aimee is an American mega pop star who first rose to fame in the 80s. She’s a white singer and a great dancer whose image has evolved through decades of continuing popularity with a strong gay fan base and a keen interest in philanthropy work in Africa – any guesses who she might be partly inspired by? Through a quirk of fate when the narrator works at a music company she ends up becoming Aimee’s personal assistant. The pop star operates on some other level of reality where she wants to magnanimously found a school for girls in an impoverished part of Africa, but doesn’t want to involve herself in the complexities of local politics. Yet, being mixed race the narrator finds her time in Africa and the connections she makes with some people there has a profoundly personal affect upon her. It’s also her entanglements with some of these people that put her working relationship with Aimee in jeopardy.

At the centre of the novel are the very personal and thoughtful observations of the narrator who we get to know intimately (even though we never learn her name). She has an interesting way of considering perceptions of identity and how she views herself by watching many old musicals and interacting with people in Africa. There’s a remove from experience whether its watching these films with their dodgy representations of black people or the teaspoons of truth she gets from her African friends: “great care was taken at all times to protect me from reality. They’d met people like me before. They knew how little reality we can take.” It’s moving the way she is searching throughout the novel to find reflections of herself and struggles to understand where she fits into society.

Fred Astaire dancing in black face in the film 'Swing Time' - the narrator watches this clip at the novel's opening when seeing a director being interviewed. Coincidentally, I actually went to this talk with Herzog at the Southbank Centre where this clip was shown.

Smith wrote a fascinating article about Christian Marclay’s art piece The Clock. This is an installation which is a looped 24-hour montage with scenes from films and television that make real-time references to the time of day. It’s really one of the most extraordinary artworks I’ve ever seen and I sat hypnotized watching it for several hours when it was showing at the Hayward Gallery in London. It feels like Smith was influenced by this when writing about the way the narrator views old musicals. She’s a girl from the 80s watching a film ‘Ali Baba Goes to Town’ from 1937 which is a Hollywood interpretation of an African tribe acting like dancers from Harlem. It’s a complex, layered look at time with versions of identity being refracted through multiple lenses and it leaves the narrator somewhat lost. In this way, it makes an interesting companion read to recent Booker winner Paul Beatty’s The Sellout which also looks at depictions of race in early television and film. Late in the novel the narrator befriends a gay couple who seem to embody something she herself can’t quite obtain. She makes the observation that they are “Two people creating the time of their own lives, protected somehow by love, not ignorant of history but not deformed by it, either.” The narrator seems in some way to have been deformed by these images from the past and the novel’s story is her journey to arrive at a more cohesive sense of self.

I don’t want to classify this as a post-Brexit novel (Smith also wrote a very strong article called ‘Fences’ about our post-Brexit world). But the novel’s portrayal of growing economic, social and political division over the course of a few decades feels very timely – particularly in how it’s portrayed with the gap in understanding between the narrator’s mother and Tracey– both lived in the same estate in the 80s but arrive at very different places and positions in life. The way their stories plays out show how there’s been breaks in how different factions of society are able to communicate with each other. In a technological age where we should be more united because we have easier means for creating dialogue it seems like we’re becoming more closed to other people’s opinions and isolated. The novel plays out a scenario between these characters where this is intensely felt.

It feels like this could be Zadie Smith’s most straightforward novel in a way as it’s told only through the voice of a single narrator. Yet, it’s also one of her most complex for the finely textured way it represents sexual awakening, friendship, fame, racial identity and history. I’m still thinking about it months later and some of its most vivid scenes really stick out in my mind. I also couldn’t help looking up on Youtube some scenes from musicals mentioned in the novel and it’s really shocking some of the things they portray. The story provokes me to think about these artefacts from the past in a more complex way. “Swing Time” is a masterful, highly intelligent and deeply enjoyable novel that will really stick with you.

Interviewing Zadie Smith

These photos make it look like I was hilarious although I don't remember cracking that many jokes.

The publishers Hamish Hamilton who publish so many authors I love such as Ali Smith, Adam Haslett and Deborah Levy kindly invited me to interview Zadie Smith on Thursday evening at a special preview event for her forthcoming novel “Swing Time”. How could I say no?! Smith’s meteoric rise to literary fame occurred in the same year I first moved to London in 2000. Ever since reading the wonder that is “White Teeth” I’ve avidly followed her writing – not only her novels but her eloquent journalism such as her review of Christian Marclay’s artwork ‘The Clock’ (one of the most brilliant pieces of art from the last decade) and her recent powerful essay about our post-Brexit world ‘Fences.’ She’s an admirably thoughtful writer who portrays a wide variety of characters with depth and insight.

I read “Swing Time” last week and it is such an engaging and fascinating book. I’ll post a full review about it in November when it’s published. But just to give you an idea of what this new novel is about here’s a brief summary. The narrator recounts her adolescence growing up in North London in the 1980s with a fiercely intelligent feminist mother and a friendship she forms with a provocative and high-spirited girl named Tracey. They bond over a shared love of dancing and are “magnetically” drawn together because they are both mixed race and have matching skin colours. She recounts her development into the 90s and then the narrative takes an interesting turn where it zigzags through time showing scenes from the narrator’s adult life working as an assistant for a famous pop star who wants to establish a school for girls in West Africa and also shows how the narrator’s friendship with Tracey broke apart in their teenage years. “Swing Time” is also the title of a 1930s musical starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and a scene from this film features in the prologue. The narrator becomes somewhat entranced with watching scenes from old Hollywood musicals particularly in the offensive way they depict race. The novel gives a fascinating perspective on time, racial identity and growing economic/social/political divisions over a few decades.

The event was held in the Prince Albert pub in Camden – a locale in the neighbourhood of the novel’s narrator. Zadie read from the opening chapter and then we talked about how this novel is quite a different book for her in its structure and focus on only one character’s perspective. We also discussed the vulnerability of writing in the first person, the fractured sense of identity created by the diaspora, the draw of nostalgia and her lifelong love of musicals. She was so engaging and interesting in her answers I wish I could have spoken to her for ages. It was also a strange coincidence that Mark Lawson sat right behind me and Zadie because the room was so packed chairs for the audience were placed behind us as well. When I first came to the UK I loved watching Newsnight Review on the BBC because (coming from the US) it felt so amazing to me that there was a serious show devoted to reviewing the arts and culture. Lawson was the show’s long time host and I’ve always respected his opinions.

This is the first time I’ve interviewed an author so it was slightly nerve-wracking that it would be with someone of Zadie’s stature. But our talk went down well with the audience who all seemed engaged and excited about the novel. It was also wonderful speaking to Zadie one on one about what else we’ve been reading recently and life in the US vs the UK. She’s very friendly and sweet so even though I felt anxious about the interview she put me at ease. It felt like a nice cosy event even though there were around 100 people there with lots of drinks and bookish chat after our talk. It was such a pleasure doing this event. I hope you’re now looking forward to reading “Swing Time” when it comes out in November because it’s such an excellent novel.

Are you a Zadie fan and which of her novels do you like most?