{"id":11078,"date":"2019-11-05T19:33:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T18:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078"},"modified":"2019-11-05T19:34:36","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T18:34:36","slug":"zadie-smith-grand-union-reviewed-by-sam-webb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078","title":{"rendered":"Zadie Smith | <strong><em>Grand Union<\/em><\/strong> | reviewed by Sam Webb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Zadie Smith | <em>Grand Union<\/em> | Hamish Hamilton: \u00a320.00 (Hardback)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-right: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i.postimg.cc\/zBTkY8SX\/71s-Kcb-Ut-Jw-L.jpg\" width=\"220\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Since the publication of <em>White Teeth<\/em> in the year 2000, Zadie Smith has published her fair share of books: four novels, a novella, two collections of essays, dozens of journalism pieces and now a short story collection, <em>Grand Union<\/em>. And like the rest, this book is truly contemporary, tackling hot topics ranging from knife crime to vegetarianism, womanhood and the influence of tech.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The idea that if you stopped before you got to 20,000 words you had to write in one way and if you carried on past 50,000 you had to write in another seemed preposterous\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n<p>So said the novelist Mark Haddon in a 2016 interview with <em>The Guardian<\/em> before the publication of his first collection, <em>The Pier Falls<\/em>. Smith seems to be running with the same line with <em>Grand Union<\/em> \u2013 promoting the collection in an interview with Marie Curie, she says there isn\u2019t a major difference between the essay and the short story: \u2018For me, there\u2019s only writing. It can be done more or less effectively\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>And yet there seems to be something conscious going on with <em>Grand Union<\/em>, something to suggest this isn\u2019t \u2018only writing\u2019. The pieces are notably short: there are 19 stories within its 240 pages (averaging 12 or so pages each), and some pieces cannot really be deemed stories at all. \u2018The Lazy River\u2019, \u2018Words and Music\u2019, \u2018Parents\u2019 Morning Epiphany\u2019 and \u2018Mood\u2019 are more like story-essays than traditional shorts. Longer pieces follow the traditional format \u2013 plot, characters, beginning, middle and end \u2013 though they do tackle the big issues. \u2018Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets\u2019 tells the tale of a transgender woman\u2019s difficult (yet comedic) NY shopping experience and \u2018Kelso Deconstructed\u2019 the real-life murder of Kelso Cochrane in Notting Hill in 1959. Smith has never been afraid to confront controversial subjects and this collection is clearly no exception.<\/p>\n<p>But does it work? Smith\u2019s success as a writer began with the novel; a form notoriously difficult to categorise and notoriously difficult to contain. Such freedom is perfect for something like <em>White Teeth<\/em> and the book was like a twenty-first century ice-bath at the time, startling fiction into the next generation of writers. Sprawling and metastasising London, multiracial Dickensian characters, Bangladeshi and Jamaican patois\u2014the book said, \u2018out with the old and in with the new\u2019 and it said it with a bang.<\/p>\n<p>As a self-confessed Smith-o-phile, it pains me to say that <em>Grand Union<\/em> lacks this imaginative freedom. The writer is fettered by the form\u2014she approaches tough and pertinent subjects, yes, but everything is all too quicklywrapped up within a couple of pages. We yearn for that great Smithsonian character: the Irie Jones, the Samad Miah Iqbal, the Alex Li-Tandem, the Howard Belsey. We get depictions of the city (the post apocalyptic \u2018Escape from New York\u2019) and we get elegiac rants (the first person \u2018Blocked\u2019) but they are watered -down versions of the big books, thin gruel rather than rambunctious novelistic stew.<\/p>\n<p>David Mitchell said with short stories \u2018there\u2019s not a lot of leeway\u2026 a few duff sentences, one wrong turn and the shimmering magic that inflates and causes a story to ascend fails and it comes crashing down to earth\u2019. I must say, I tend to agree with Mitchell rather than Haddon or Smith. The shorter form is different. The fact the writer uses fewer words does change the nature of the piece. To continue the airborne analogy, the thing needs to take-off quicker, enter cruise control, and achieve landing in fewer words and fewer minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Smith\u2019s last successful novel was <em>On Beauty<\/em>. Sometimes, we can\u2019t be good at everything, and short stories aren\u2019t really Smith\u2019s bag. Yet, she remains a truly gifted novelist and the most important British fiction writer so far this millennium. Hopefully, we shouldn\u2019t have too long to wait for another big book either: an unnamed historical<br \/>\nnovel is due later this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>by Sam Webb<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zadie Smith | Grand Union | Hamish Hamilton: \u00a320.00 (Hardback) Since the publication of White Teeth in the year 2000, Zadie Smith has published her fair share of books: four novels, a novella, two collections of essays, dozens of journalism pieces and now a short story collection, Grand Union. And like the rest, this book [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Zadie Smith | Grand Union | reviewed by Sam Webb - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zadie Smith | Grand Union | reviewed by Sam Webb - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Zadie Smith | Grand Union | Hamish Hamilton: \u00a320.00 (Hardback) Since the publication of White Teeth in the year 2000, Zadie Smith has published her fair share of books: four novels, a novella, two collections of essays, dozens of journalism pieces and now a short story collection, Grand Union. And like the rest, this book [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-05T18:33:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-05T18:34:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i.postimg.cc\/zBTkY8SX\/71s-Kcb-Ut-Jw-L.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sam Webb\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sam Webb\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078\",\"name\":\"Zadie Smith | Grand Union | reviewed by Sam Webb - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-05T18:33:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-05T18:34:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/70b0187a1826e3a32f8e7c1745bee3ce\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11078#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Zadie Smith | Grand Union | reviewed by Sam Webb\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/70b0187a1826e3a32f8e7c1745bee3ce\",\"name\":\"Sam Webb\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Sam Webb\"},\"description\":\"Sam Webb was born in Hertfordshire and educated in Oxford. 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