And this process is recounted in short chapters alternating with chapters in London and New York as our narrator flies around the world at the behest of her boss. Global because Aimée decides to use her considerable wealth in setting up a school for girls in a rural area in Africa-which we learn later may be Senegal-and the narrator is part of the team getting the project off the ground. She lands a job with singer celebrity Aimée, a white pop star, world famous and based in New York and the focus of the novel switches to her relationship with Aimée in a setting which is now global. Post university, our narrator works in the media and her life, and the narrative, is from then on in dominated by digital communication and social media-she is forever on her laptop or glued to her phone. Their actual contact is now minimal, though the narrator occasionally hears how her friend’s career is progressing through chance or family contacts. Tracey turns out to have real talent for dance and she goes to stage school, whereas the narrator-whose name we never know- completes her education at the local comp and goes to university on the south coast to study media. As their music and dance tastes expand beyond Fred Astaire, their paths diverge.
The novel traces the girls’ lives through primary and secondary school in North London with its mix of cultures, music and adolescent experiences. The narrator’s father is kindly and loving but unambitious and ineffectual and eventually the parents separate as the mother educates herself beyond him. Tracey’s mother is white working class and practically a single parent, whereas the narrator’s mother is an intelligent, politically aware, aspiring black woman, refreshingly absent domestically, as her main focus is catching up on her own education. Socially, they come from rather different backgrounds. They become friends through a shared identity- both are mixed race-and through a passion for old musicals, song and dance. The novel starts with the girlhood friendship between the narrator and Tracey who meet at Miss Isabel’s dance class in Willesden. In addition, the plot takes us to Africa, to Senegal, raising ethical questions about foreign aid, cultural appropriation and globalisation, hinting at the challenges these will bring in the years to come. Yet these are explored here in a new way through the lens of music and dance. Some of the themes in Zadie Smith’s new novel will be familiar to readers from her previous work: growing up in the diverse London suburb of Willesden, female friendship, exploring racial identity and the nuances of class difference in contemporary Britain.
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