July book of the month: Swing Time by Zadie Smith. Catch up on the webchat with Zadie

[RachelMumsnet]

Our July book of the month is Zadie Smith's brilliant novel Swing Time. We hope you'll join us by reading the book ahead of the webchat with Zadie - on * Wednesday 2 August from 9pm *

Swing Time is Zadie's fifth novel and tells the story of two young girls who meet in a West London dance class. Find out more about the book.

If you didn't win a free copy, you're still welcome to join us by buying the book or downloading the e-book, or just posting a question to Zadie about her award-winning back catalogue.

Absolutely loved this book, couldn't put it down! It's the first of your novels that I have read and will definitely be looking to read the others asap. I work in central London in education and one of my favourite passages in the book was the beginning of Chapter 9 where you give an insight into attitudes of some mums towards PT meetings - it really struck a chord with me in terms of some of the work I do with disadvantaged families. How much has being a mum yourself influenced your writing?

Hi Zadie,

I'm joining this discussion with blinkers on as I haven't finished the book yet. BUT, I am loving it and racing through it as the story drew me in, right from the beginning. The girls friendship is described so well and feels so real. At times I feel your unnamed narrator must have an autobiographical element. But at the same time all the characters do.

Early on in the book you say "But to me a dancer was a man from nowhere, without parents or siblings, without a nation or people, without obligations of any kind, and this was exactly the quality I loved". Does this represent how you feel about yourself as a writer?

Good evening everyone! A huge welcome to Zadie Smith, and thank you so much for joining us tonight. It looks like you've all been enjoying Swing Time and there are lots of questions already so let's get started. Over to you Zadie...

Hi - me here x

Did that work?

It did! We can hear you loud and clear!

I haven't finished it yet either but really enjoying the story and the way it's written and how insightful it is, one thing in particular I have been struck by is the parents attitude to school and why they may not bother going to parents evenings which all stems from their experiences not because they don't care about their own children.
Can't wait to read more and looking forward this webchat.

Hello! My question has already been asked by someone else, but adding it again the hope it will be answered! What was reason for not naming the narrator and what was the effect you perceived that would have on the reader?

I haven't finished the book either but I am enjoying it so far!

Hello Zadie,

Really enjoying the book ATM but not finished yet .

I've read you were once a jazz singer. Given the book 'swing time' and swing music being a sub-genre of jazz, what is/was your ultimate favourite jazz song to sing?

Hello 34AQuid

Bear with me - i'm not good with computers. Motherhood/writing.

I don't have full time childcare. I had more when they were small, but now they're 7 and 4 i work in school hours, so from about 9.30-2.30. In the summer we don't really work, unless Nick takes them half a day or I do that for him. We tag team it that way and write in the gaps. During Swing Time I had a wonderful Australian girl called Nicole from Bendigo, and that's partly how Aimee came to be from Bendigo --

@34AQuid

Hello Zadie! Love all your work. As a Kilburn girl myself - now moved away - 'Swing Time' and 'NW' made me so nostalgic!

I read 'Swing Time' in 48 hours (on holiday in Shanghai in the raging heat) and laughed and cried and nodded in recognition at the description of the two main characters and their friendship. Tracy reminds me of a lot of the girls I grew up with. She breaks my heart a little bit, actually.

Anyway...waffle, waffle...my question is:

How do you continue to write now you are a mother of young children? I know thats a lame question (and I'm sure Martin frigging Amis has never been asked it), but lets be real - its hard.

Do you have full-time childcare? Do you treat it like a day job? Or do you ever have to go away without the kids so you can get into a zone and write the damn thing? And how do does your partner (also a writer) do it? Do you both write at the same time? I find the lives of people who actually write and don't just talk about it fascinating, as you can probably tell .

p.s. As we say in NW.. big up yourself!

When the my daughter was very small I agreed to be a book reviewer for Harpers in the US....it almost killed me. I think I did it to 'prove' that I could do it. I don't do stuff like that any more.

I write in those school hours and then try not to think about writing outside of those hours. That way just leads to frustration. But I think there's something fruitful in working four hours and then not seeing the work again till perhaps the next day. You come to it pretty fresh each time with a hard, cool eye.

Some songs are fun, because easy: fly me to the moon, 'I could write a book', 'it had to be you'. Some songs are hard - 'I love you porgy' - summertime - 'don't explain' - but much more rewarding.

My favourite for showing off is 'mr paganini'

@Reastie

Hello Zadie,

Really enjoying the book ATM but not finished yet .

I've read you were once a jazz singer. Given the book 'swing time' and swing music being a sub-genre of jazz, what is/was your ultimate favourite jazz song to sing?

'Autobiographical' is a difficult word in fiction. In once sense every book is you: it's a record of your preoccupations, interests, ideas. But on the other hand none of these things happened.

I think of it more like acting. "If' i was this person, what would my life be like? Or: if I had lived this life, how would i feel about it?

It's a chance to live twice - live another life, with different structures in it, different freedoms, different limitations. What would it like to be an only child, a pop star, Gambian, a man, old, a child again, and so on. Every page is like asking yourself these questions.

@Belo

Hi Zadie,

I'm joining this discussion with blinkers on as I haven't finished the book yet. BUT, I am loving it and racing through it as the story drew me in, right from the beginning. The girls friendship is described so well and feels so real. At times I feel your unnamed narrator must have an autobiographical element. But at the same time all the characters do.

Early on in the book you say "But to me a dancer was a man from nowhere, without parents or siblings, without a nation or people, without obligations of any kind, and this was exactly the quality I loved". Does this represent how you feel about yourself as a writer?

Hi Zadie

I've nearly finished reading Swing Time which I'm thoroughly enjoying, and looking forward to reading your other books now that I've discovered you.

I'd like to ask you what you're currently reading. and what author you've recently 'discovered' and now want to read their entire collection ?

Hello Zadie. I'm looking forward to reading the book.

I recently heard an interview with you where you discussed the idea of historical nostalgia, a yearning for, or feeling of belonging to, a time one has never been a part of; a kind of shared cultural memory anyone can access. (I hope I'm expressing it adequately). It really struck me and I've thought about it a lot since, the power of nostalgia and its implications. May I ask you to talk a little bit more about your thoughts on this please, and was it your own response to the past that led you to think about this more widely?

Also do you have any plans to write fiction based fully in a past time and which period would you be drawn to if so?

Thank you.

Evening! Is any of Swing Time autobiographical? I did wonder whether that was one of the reasons the narrator was unnamed?

I also work 9-2:30 as a mother myself. But my work isn't creative, I thought that as a writer, you would get ideas at any time during the day. It's interesting and amazing (and very disciplined!) that you wrote a masterpiece by keeping to regular, strict hours!
How long did it take you to write the book?

It was partly technical. It is a person almost speaking aloud to themselves - I did not see why they would refer to themselves. But that's also a disingenuous answer: it was sort a philosophical point. I totally get that most novels - most cultural products - are about 'personalities.' as in 'i am this certain type of person and here s the fascinating life i have because of that.'

Everything you read and see is like that. But when i was a kid i read the french existentialists and i was very early on convinced that people, as they argued, don't really have essential natures. They're just thrown into the world, things happen to them, and that makes them who they are.

"Our lives teach us who we are" - that's a nice quote from salman rushdie. I agree. When people tell me - in blogs, on twitter, in columns, in novels - what type of person they are, i find it hard to believe. I think its actions that mean things, not people's ideas of themselves. and so i set out to write a character who really has no personality in the modern sense. who is just someone things happen to. and that's the most autobiographical part of the whole book because that's honestly how i feel. I don't feel like anyone in particular.

@tigerdog

Hello! My question has already been asked by someone else, but adding it again the hope it will be answered! What was reason for not naming the narrator and what was the effect you perceived that would have on the reader?

I haven't finished the book either but I am enjoying it so far!

And massive congratulations for being shortlisted for the Booker prize 👍👍👍

Hi Zadie. I haven't finished Swing Time but I'm really enjoying it so far. As you've lived in New York for a while now, how do you feel it informs your writing?

Hi Zadie!

Something that made me think with a smile on my face was how the narrator describes music to Aimee, as a visual experience. It made me think of what songs I instantly picture the music video with, like 'Wannabe' by Spice Girls, or 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' by Cyndi Lauper. Which songs, or more like music videos, were you thinking about when writing?

Not really a question as such, only to say the section about the playground knickers chasing - I found this really disturbing and thought provoking. Particularly how after the initial game the boys stopped chasing the white girls at school. I don't quite know what the statement is here about race and the sexual harassment, except to say it really made me think (maybe that was the purpose!).

Thanks

It took me a while to get to Penelope Fitzgerald. But once I read The Blue Flower I realized I'd have to read everything she wrote. Currently i'm reading boring things for a novel i'm researching. My only entertainment is a pile of graphic novels a lady at Jonathan Cape sent me. I LOVE comics - and there's such a feeling of achievement, finishing what are often masterful books in a few hours.

@alialiath

Hi Zadie

I've nearly finished reading Swing Time which I'm thoroughly enjoying, and looking forward to reading your other books now that I've discovered you.

I'd like to ask you what you're currently reading. and what author you've recently 'discovered' and now want to read their entire collection ?

Hi Zadie, I'm enjoying the novel very much. Your descriptions of the narrator's mother (and the contrast with Tracey's mother) are really interesting - did you have anyone particularly in mind for this character?

I'd also like to ask whether you think that female friendships are always doomed to competitiveness / jealousy to a certain degree?

I guess I have this feeling that frustration is in itself creative. I never make a note, I never carry a notebook. I just think: well, if the idea was worthwhile it'll come back to me after we've left Kidzania, after the tube, after dinner time, bath time, bed time. My husband thinks this is stupid and that i lose good ideas this way - he may be right. He's always making notes all the time, but that's for his poetry and i think poetry is more this quicksilver thing of inspiration. I see my work as much less creative than that. It really is construction, what i do. Just out of sentences.

@Maraki

I also work 9-2:30 as a mother myself. But my work isn't creative, I thought that as a writer, you would get ideas at any time during the day. It's interesting and amazing (and very disciplined!) that you wrote a masterpiece by keeping to regular, strict hours! How long did it take you to write the book?