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.

I'd just like to add that Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland was highly recommending your books on her Twitter feed last week.

Hi Zadie
I've been aware of you as a respected author for some time now but for some reason, I'd never read anything - just assumed it wouldn't appeal or wouldn't be relevant. How wrong I was and I'm sorry!

I loved the autobiographical style of writing as it changed the way I read the book - instead of going in with the full knowledge it was fiction and how things would always be somewhat removed, I was gripped by the storyline and had complete trust in what I was reading with empathy for the narrator.

I was struck by how, although compeletely different at first glance Aimee and Tracey were, their characters were incredibly similar and the narrator never really got her chance to come into her own as once removed from a dominant friendship, she walked straight into another one and at the end of the book, the circle had turned again.

My question is, as the storyline is one sided and seen from the point of the view of the narrator, did you ever consider chapters perhaps told from the point of view of the other characters and do you think that would have changed our perceptions of them?

I think then i was talking about the impossibility of historical nostalgia for so many people. Like, I love the 30s and 40s in my mind - but as a black woman would I want to be transported back to New York in 1930? No. Nor 1960. My point was for others - for a white man for example - 1930 might look pretty sweet. And we know, watching a show like Mad Men for example, that the 50s look fantastic for a certain kind of man who misses having a martini passed to him as he comes in off the evening train.

So for historical nostalgia is more difficult - but it doesn't mean i don't have it. I'm a terribly nostalgic person. Aged 15 I used to sit in my window dreaming about having tea with Austen...but then a few minutes later I'd have to have the rational correction. Would Austen even recognize me as a human citizen, like her? It's just this funny bitter-sweet thing. as a kid you see a past you can't access. Then again, no one can access the past of course. But perhaps to access it in imagination is a lovely freedom.

@SatsukiKusakabe

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.

Thanks for answering my question Zadie. An interesting philosophical answer and something to bear in mind when reading the rest of the book. I read your response to my husband (who is currently driving us up to the coast) and it has sparked off a debate about essential nature and personality - he disagrees!

I'm afraid the mother is probably rather like me - or the worst version of me. By writing it down you hope to avoid becoming it, I suppose.

I think women are raised in an atmosphere of comparison. But I don't think of it as competitiveness or jealousy. I think of it as hyper attuned projection. We are skilled from an incredibly early age at projecting ourselves hypothetically into the experiences of other people. my favourite example of this is my children. if my daughter parts from a friend around 5.30 her questions to the other mother are as follows: what will she do? is she going to have dinner? is she going straight to bed? will she get a movie? what time does she have to have lights out? And so on.

When my son parts from a friend he says 'bye' and then doesn't think of that child again till he seems him once more.

People depict womens interest in each other as envy and so on but it's a sort of radical identification that i think we should be grateful for.

@bellabelly

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?

@Celama

Hi Zadie I've been aware of you as a respected author for some time now but for some reason, I'd never read anything - just assumed it wouldn't appeal or wouldn't be relevant. How wrong I was and I'm sorry!

I loved the autobiographical style of writing as it changed the way I read the book - instead of going in with the full knowledge it was fiction and how things would always be somewhat removed, I was gripped by the storyline and had complete trust in what I was reading with empathy for the narrator.

I was struck by how, although compeletely different at first glance Aimee and Tracey were, their characters were incredibly similar and the narrator never really got her chance to come into her own as once removed from a dominant friendship, she walked straight into another one and at the end of the book, the circle had turned again.

My question is, as the storyline is one sided and seen from the point of the view of the narrator, did you ever consider chapters perhaps told from the point of view of the other characters and do you think that would have changed our perceptions of them?

Yes, it would have changed everything - and it's what i usually do. I try to be 'fair' and to see things 'in the round'. But I didn't want to do that this time. I thought it was fraudulent, this pretending to be always 'wise' and 'fair'. Are we wise in life? are we fair? Rarely. We're subjective. We follow our desires, needs, obsessions so on. We use people like tools, even when we think we're not doing that. I wanted to write for once from a single perspective. Less sympathetic perhaps but closer to our real experiences.

Hi, Zadie! I read Swing Time in when it was published and have been thinking about it since.

You've spoken about this novel as being one about, at least in part, how to become a person. The narrator ends up in a specific, complicated place; is she really becoming her own person, or is she simply shifting into a new iteration of an old identity?

Also, I was in the audience for the wonderful conversation that you have with Eleanor Wachtel in Toronto last December, and I want to thank you for staying and signing every last book, particularly on what I understand was a grueling day of travel. I was near the end of the line, and I so appreciate your generosity!

Hi Zadie,

I know there are quite a few questions coming in live, but I just wanted to post a few from posters further up the thread that might get missed:

Sumac - how do you stay so finely attuned to London ways and attitudes when you spend a lot of time in America?

Paloolah - My questions for Zadie are:

1. Did you do a lot of research about the history of dance and musicals, or is this an area you were already expert in?
2. As you are drawn back to Willesden, have any of the same characters living there appeared in more than one of your novels? Or have you ever been tempted to do this?

GhostsToMonsoon -

1. The idea of revenge seems to occur a few times - the narrator retaliating at Aimee for firing her, which in turn was Aimee getting back at her for sleeping with Lamin, and then Tracey posting the childhood video to show the narrator in an unflattering light. Was this something you wanted to explore in particular?

@Gooseysgirl

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?

Everything that happens to you has an influence. i don't claim any special powers from motherhood, but I just know i'm not the same as I was. Whether its an improvement or not I can't say. But the one tentative thing you might say is that you begin to see life in the round. Child, parent, child - you make the round trip.

I nearly cried when I read your description of the relationship between mother and child as a sort of war of attrition. It sums it up perfectly... that realisation that no mater what else you have done in your life to define who you are, or whatever you think yourself to be, your child is always brushing all that aside and reminding you that you are their mother.

Did motherhood change how you portray children & family relationships in your writing? It's been a while since I read your earlier novels. Do you think differently about the characters you created in your earlier novels?

@VanderlyleGeek

Hi, Zadie! I read Swing Time in when it was published and have been thinking about it since.

You've spoken about this novel as being one about, at least in part, how to become a person. The narrator ends up in a specific, complicated place; is she really becoming her own person, or is she simply shifting into a new iteration of an old identity?

Also, I was in the audience for the wonderful conversation that you have with Eleanor Wachtel in Toronto last December, and I want to thank you for staying and signing every last book, particularly on what I understand was a grueling day of travel. I was near the end of the line, and I so appreciate your generosity!

To me becoming a person is opening yourself up to uncertainty and to the reality of other people. By the end of Swing Time this narrator has really no idea who she is. I consider that a very good start! The ideas we have about ourselves are so often deluded and self-serving. I suppose i hope that in the last pages she is about to enter two real relations - with Tracey, her friend, and perhaps also with Fernando, as a lover. A relation to me is a channel between two people where are not simply performing personalities to each other but actually in communication. I call that being a person.And I think it's super hard to do! I think it's a task that lasts your whole life.

@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?

I do often feel like a local writer: that girl from Willesden. That is my proudest self-description. But at the same time i guess i do feel that a writer has to be in the end free of precise affiliation or very fixed roots. You can't be 'responsible' to a certain place of argument the way a citizen sometimes is or a politician has to be...you can't tow party lines or play to a certain corner of the gallery. As a reader its freedom i'm most attracted to. It's always what i'm looking for in a book.

Totally agree with your comments above on motherhood and how it changes the way you look at life.

I thought the different portrayals of motherhood throughout the Swing Time were incredibly interesting.

When you had the original concept for the book did you know that you were going to touch upon celebrity adoption?

I'm always in London mid June -September, so there's that. But I don't know how finely attuned I am really. I tried to meet a friend today in 'granary square' and I had to ask about 5 people for directions from St Pancras....The city has changed so much. There's so much I don't understand, can't follow. 30 percent of the British newspapers are mysterious to me now - especially anything talking about the telly. I had to have gogglebox explained to me one christmas: 'it's people on telly watching people on telly'. Sometimes england can look a bit surreal to me, as i'm sure the USA looks to england.

I don't think of myself as any chronicler of contemporary life in London any more if I ever did. Younger people will do that job. I'm just a writer - i'll write about whatever's to hand. Poster at the window. painting in the gallery. Kid in the street, whichever street. It's whatever interests me - can come from anywhere.

@sumac

Thank you for the book, I enjoyed it a lot. I particularly liked the insights on entitlement, and on how our background and upbringing affects us. I appreciate the way the narrator (and possibly Zadie herself) are allergic to bragging – love the naming of the Noted Activist. The description of the narrator’s well-meaning but cold mother and the humourless Miriam are precise and at times funny. My question for Zadie is how do you stay so finely attuned to London ways and attitudes when you spend a lot of time in America?

@alialiath

I'd just like to add that Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland was highly recommending your books on her Twitter feed last week.

If I new how to use emoticons I'd put a smiling one here

KNEW

SIGH

@Greensmurf1

I nearly cried when I read your description of the relationship between mother and child as a sort of war of attrition. It sums it up perfectly... that realisation that no mater what else you have done in your life to define who you are, or whatever you think yourself to be, your child is always brushing all that aside and reminding you that you are their mother.

Did motherhood change how you portray children & family relationships in your writing? It's been a while since I read your earlier novels. Do you think differently about the characters you created in your earlier novels?

It's a good question. if i ever read my previous novels i might have a better sense of the answer! All I can squintingly see through my fingers and full of shame is some mouthy 22 year old who thinks she knows something writing a novel of over 500 pages. I can't imagine what's in there. One day when i'm properly grey instead of only half grey like now i might pull it down from the shelf and see what 'wisdom' that girl thought she had. It is possible that young people know something we don't know I suppose. But I really have no idea now what that might have been. Energy? I had energy. They have energy. Nothing wrong with it you just don't feel like revisiting that sort of energy 20 years later!

Thank you Zadie

@Keeccles

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

Physical areas. The estates. the trees. My mother did once dig a big hole full of clay, but not on the estate. I went to dance class but in ST's world 'i' am a dancer and dancing is my obsession. But in reality 'i' soon became obsessed with books and books were my only obsession. I love all those old movies, dancing, singing - but for me it was a road not taken. Part of writing is imagining: what if i had taken that road?

Thank you for answering my question, Zadie.

I agree London is changing a lot.

I liked the description of the dad in NW who would go to a certain area for croissants but wouldn't send his kid to school there. That's the kind of description in your books I was thinking about.

Hi Katie,

I miss eton mess and apple crumbles. big crowds hugging a pub corner in the afternoon sun. the heath. the lido. the ponds. the overground. the people on the overground. eating blackberries of bushes outside the overground. willesden sunsets. old friends. family. kids chatting on the top of the 98. pancake day. fireworks night. the foxes.

@KTD1230

Hi,

I'm not sure if I will be back in time for webchat tonight but still wanted to participate.

Firstly I want to say thanks to Mumsnet to introducing me to a new author. I am really enjoying this book and I am looking forward to finding out how it ends, and exploring Zadie's previous novels.

My questions for Zadie are:

1 - I love the dancing references - do you have a background in dance?
2 - I read that you live in New York (very jel!) what do you miss most about the UK?

Hopefully I will be back in time to join in later so will try and think of some more questions.

Thanks,

Katie

Well, I think that's it! Thank you so much Zadie for your thoughtful answers and for getting through so many questions. It's a been a joy to have you for this hour. Good luck with the Booker! We'll be rooting for you.

For those of you interested in Zadie's previous books, you can buy NW here, On Beauty here, and White Teeth here. There are others too!

Night all

Dear Mins mum

Nothing amazes me more than the fact that people who are not from willesden get something out of these books. Someone in Germany once said to me at a signing table

"Here we have willesden too!"

and i think that must be it. everyone has an urban suburb, neglected by the centre, mixed and ever-changing, that considers itself more interesting than the centre. lots of people live in willesden, all over the world.

@minsmum

Really enjoying this, another person from North London, I have enjoyed all your books from the first time I read White teeth. My question is do you think that on the whole they appeal to city dwellers and would part of that be because we recognize the different characters

GOOD NIGHT MUMS. I HOPE THEY'RE ALL ASLEEP BY NOW. MINE ARE FINALLY

ZXX

yes please