Swing Time Hardcover – November 15, 2016 by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press)

I keep reading Zadie Smith thinking I must be missing something. Everyone proclaims her a literary superstar, but I've always found something lacking in her novels. In the beginning I found her to be undisciplined, unfocused, in strong need of an editor. She gave me a headache. Now I think the problem, at least for me, is that she lacks depth, although it seems on the surface as if she's writing about deep issues. In her latest revisit to NW London, her sense of place is indelible, but I found the drawn out story of an on-again-off-again friendship, and a subsequent friendship with a rock star, not at all convincing. In particular, the character of Aimee, the rock star, feels false. I didn't buy that relationship at all. Adding an EDIT here, as I think about this some more: one big problem is that I think Smith skates over characterizations without doing deeper work. The whole book is predicated on the idea of dance as a metaphor, but as someone who knows something about dance I found the writing absolutely lacking in anything resembling truth. The girls watch videos and talk very vaguely about dance, but there's nothing from Smith about their bodies, nothing about movement, nothing about discipline or pain or pleasure of dancing, no true description of what it really means to be a dancer. Just fake-sounding talk. Did she do any research at all on this subject? Equally, the references to old movies feel like that's all they are: references from research, titles, a bit of color laid in, nothing more. Smith clearly doesn't know what it means to be a singer. We get nothing of Aimee's music, nothing about who she is as a musician, nothing about a life dedicated to music, only a false conflation of Madonna and someone else maybe? And possibly the worst thing is the friendship Smith begins with, something that seems profound between two needy children, gets completely lost as she moves on. What happened to Tracey, exactly? Why did she go off the rails? What is wrong with her? She sketches what might have been the most interesting character without any completion, which is frustrating for the reader. Occasionally Smith's insight into someone's nature is described beautifully, with beautiful, lyrical language, especially scenes set in Africa (the most authentic scenes in the book), and I'd think, oh here it is, the high caliber talent that won Smith her accolades. But that feeling would slip away as I read on, as it always seems to do.