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Nazneen is the eldest of two girls, growing up in a village in Bangladesh. Her younger sister Hasina runs away to marry the young man she is in love with, and not long after that, when she is eighteen, Nazneen is married to a man twenty years older than her and sent to live with him in London.

Her husband, Chanu, is kind and very talkative. They live in a dingy flat on an estate where she makes friends with some other Bangladeshi women. Her world is narrow and small, consisting of the flat and Brick Lane, where she walks one step behind her husband. She is not encouraged to learn English, or even leave the estate. But gradually she moves more and more into the world outside, though all that she knows is what Chanu tells her - and he "is an educated man", as he is constantly saying. They have three children, two girls after the first little boy dies, and some twelve years after she arrived in England she is swept up in an affair with a young man, Karim. Slowly, so slowly, she begins to speak for herself, but always there is this need to be a good, dutiful wife. To cut the skin around the corns on her husband's feet, to cook and keep the flat tidy, to be Chanu's audience as he lectures, to watch as his plans and ambitions fall flat one by one.

The story is told from Nazneen's perspective, sliced through with letters from her sister in Dhaka, whose story is easily more tragic. Nazneen, quiet and unknowledgable, is like a blank canvass for the opinions and impressions of others. When she asks a direct question, rarely is it answered. We see her world, small as it is though at times shaken by greater deeds (like nine-eleven), through her watchful, patient eyes. Many things are shown rather than told, making the real situation easily discernible and very rich and layered.

It is beautifully, skilfully written. A bit slow maybe, but with great impact. I can't deny that it didn't affect me, and bring me down a bit at times. The story slips into a secret place, shines a light on a place generally ignored and dismissed and undervalued: the housewife's domain and life. The politics, the aspirations, the hatred against Muslims, the clash of cultures and struggle to assimilate without abandoning your own culture, it's all there. But through it all there is strength in these women, and determination. The struggle Nazneen goes through, with her own conscience, her own desires and wants so long put aside, her fondness for the often revolting - but not cruel, no, he never beats her - Chanu (a surprisingly sympathetic character, in that it's easy to feel sorry for him), while gang wars and drug abuse and abusive husbands play out in both England and Bangladesh, all creates a vivid portrayal of an immigrant experience common to London, Paris, Sydney, Toronto. Relevant, topical, at times heartarchingly sad, Brick Lane is like Nazneen, watching silently, presenting a story without spoken judgement, biding its time, and at the end, so very very rewarding.