NW (2012)

NW is a 2012 novel by British author Zadie Smith. It takes its title from the NW postcode area in North-West London, where the novel is set. The novel is experimental and follows four different characters living in London, shifting between first and third person, stream-of-consciousness, screenplay-style dialogue, and other narrative techniques in an attempt to reflect the polyphonic nature of contemporary urban life. It was nominated for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction.

Content

Plot

Set in the northwest of London, England, four locals — Leah Hanwell, Natalie (born Keisha) Blake, Felix Cooper, and Nathan Bogle — try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the working-class council estate where they grew up. While Leah has not managed to venture far from her childhood location, her best friend Natalie, now a successful, self-made barrister, lives in an affluent neighbourhood in a Victorian house. Despite their friendship and history, the two women find that they are very different from each other socio-economically. Meanwhile, a chance encounter brings Felix and Nathan together. Leah is the focus of a lower-working-class life in comparison to Natalie who represents the small higher-working-class. All four characters represent a piece of the lost generation struggling to ascend economically.

Part 1 – "visitation": Social worker Leah Hanwell is contacted by Shar, a now destitute former school classmate, who claims she needs money for a cab ride to visit her mother in the emergency room. Leah later learns that Shar is a drug addict and this is a scam she regularly operates for drug money. Leah becomes obsessed with Shar and begins following her around Northwest London. After tracking Shar to her flat one day and leaving behind pamphlets for a rehabilitation center, Leah receives a threatening phone call from a man whom she believes to be Shar's boyfriend. Believing she recognizes his voice on the street one day, Leah inadvertently goads her husband, Michel, into confronting the man, who kicks their dog to death. Around the same time, Leah has a chance encounter with her former teenage crush, Nathan "Nate" Bogle, now a homeless drug addict; it occurs to Leah that Nathan may be Shar's boyfriend and the man who called her. Shortly thereafter, Leah learns of a local man's brutal murder during Notting Hill Carnival. The incidents lead her to question her trust in the community and her own life's work.

Part 2 – "guest": Former drug addict Felix Cooper wants to start a new life with his girlfriend, Grace. Formerly a successful chef, he bowed to pressure from his Rastafarian father and uncle to quit his job to go into a tourism business with them; the failure of the business precipitated Felix's decline into drug abuse and eventually rehab. He meets one last time with his drug-using ex-lover to say goodbye and purchases a heavily damaged vintage car with the intention of restoring it. On his way home, a pregnant white woman mistakes him for the companion of a pair of train passengers because all three are black. Felix inadvertently slights the men in his efforts to persuade one of them to move his feet, to allow the woman to sit down. After Felix departs the train, the men follow him and rob him. When Felix refuses to hand over a pair of zirconium earrings that were a gift from Grace, one of the men impulsively stabs him to death.

Part 3 - "host": Keisha "Natalie" Blake has met every goal she ever set for herself. She graduated from a prestigious university, became a successful lawyer, married an investment banker from a rich family, and moved to one of to the most expensive parts of London to raise her two children with him. Nonetheless, Natalie feels that her life is empty and is haunted by thoughts that she isn't a complete person. She struggles to reconcile her working-class, liberal, Afro-Caribbean roots- "Keisha"- with the upwardly mobile, socially conservative "Natalie" persona she has crafted for herself and which she has come to feel increasingly trapped by. Hoping to find an escape, she arranges a series of disastrous sexual encounters online with couples via swingers sites. On the night of the Notting Hill Carnival, Natalie's husband learns of her double life and they have a disastrous argument that culminates in Natalie suffering a nervous breakdown and wandering into the carnival in her pyama.

Part 4 – "crossing": Wandering the streets of London during the Notting Hill Carnival in a fugue state, Natalie runs into Nathan Bogle, who offers her comfort. The two smoke marijuana together and reminisce about their divergent paths in life; Natalie looks for a reason for Nathan's downward trajectory in spite of his good grades in school and personal charisma, but Nathan sees nothing more than bad luck as responsible for his current position in life. The two pass the site of Felix's murder, which startles Natalie. Nathan makes reference to a violent acquaintance of his named Tyler; it becomes apparent that Nathan and Tyler were the men who robbed Felix, though Tyler actually committed the murder. She later accompanies Nathan to a tube station where she sees him receive stolen goods from Shar and another woman, whom Nathan implies work for him as prostitutes. Natalie wanders to a bridge where she attempts suicide, only for Nathan to stop her.