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That was not what I expected.

Not that I can define very well what I did expect. I am curious that Ali, after making a splash with this book and writing a few more novels has pretty much disappeared.

I supposed I imagined that this book would very strongly a novel of the New Labour era that by now would be well past it's best before date and that it would smell dated and stale. It is dated in that I could see a novelist tackling the same topic might be angrier and there would not be minor touches of optimism like the estate getting a youth centre and the main character's flat finally getting some repairs, (view spoiler)[possibly this 'modern' version I imagine might tie up the Bangladesh and Tower Hamlets stories courtesy of the Bangladesh Awami League (hide spoiler)].

What this is, is a very close portrait of a woman over time, another review mentioned Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, well yes there is a connection, but that would be a spoiler and in terms of the drive of the story it is only a part of the main character's journey not a decisive (and fatal) hammer blow. Ice Skating and Torvil & Dean are more important ultimately in this story.

My sense was that this is much more like a version of The old wives tale, the contrasting lives of two sisters, the adventurous and beautiful Hasina, and her elder sister the dutiful and eager to please Nazneen. The two are brought up in a village in Bangladesh, although at first (view spoiler)[ and that is significant, because this is an evolutionary novel, all about change over time (hide spoiler)] Nazneen, who is married of to an older man and goes with him to London, hankers after that lost world of childhood, Ali is careful not to show us the village as a bucolic idyll. Still it is what Nazneen knew. We learn of Hasina's story through the occasional letters that she sends Nazneen and this is used to advance the story by a few years at one stage.

This novel is a great portrayal of London too - not as a teeming, pigeon infested Metropolis with it's sewers full of looming Fatbergs, but as the tight world of a one bedroom flat (later a two bedroom flat) in a shabby council housing estate in Tower Hamlets, when we see; Bishopsgate, Covent Garden or Buckingham Palace they are strange, alien places, other worlds in every sense.

I felt also that aside from some jokes, that this was a Victorian novel, the main character is suspiciously reliable, it is mostly scrupulously chronological - flashbacks are clear, there is no whiff of modernism, in literary terms this is a continuation of the novel as Dickens knew it, it is something like David Copperfield, very domestic, starting from the birth running from misery towards non-misery with up's and downs on the way, the wicked Loan Shark - an increasingly elderly Bengali woman with two dim sons as her enforcers, is a Dickensian grotesque as is Nazneen's hapless husband, overweight, with his corns and unheard thesis on white working class racism - though Ali treats him far more tenderly than Dickens' would have, he is something of a Mr Micawber believing that 'something will come up', a promotion, a job, business opportunities - his narrative arc is very (view spoiler)[ sorry for the spoiler (hide spoiler)] similar too. He does get to be the voice of truth and knowledge, despite being a ridiculous and often silly figure in the novel.

And then there are jokes (view spoiler)[ ok, not particularly funny ones (hide spoiler)], Nazneen's husband works for Mr Dalloway but is never invited round to his house for the barbecue hosted by his wife, there is a Dr Azad, like his namesake in A Passage to India ashamed of his own house (view spoiler)[ this novel could have been called A Passage to England - it is very largely Forster's book turned inside out (view spoiler)[ but I am just showering you with spoilers here (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)].

Clothes are a nice feature of this novel both as character or character's statements of allegiance and outlook. Certainly a good, solid novel, it may not turn your life upside down or keep you awake at night, but is very nicely done.