3.5 stars

Thank you @penguinpress for gifting me an early copy of Grand Union by Zadie Smith! Bringing together eleven brand new, never before seen stories and a few well-loved stories previously published in magazines & newspapers, Grand Union explores notions of time and place, identity and rebirth, legacies that haunt us and futures that rush to meet us.

I was surprised by the range of genres Smith presents here, as her narrative fiction usually explores themes such as family, immigration and community under what I’d class as literary fiction. Some of these forays into new genres impressed me more than others - Meet the President was a short sci-fi tale that just left me cold, whereas The Canker had me dying for Smith to produce a full-length fantasy novel - please!

In her novels, Smith’s characters are always so vibrant and alive, and she manages to achieve this same vitality in her short fiction - no mean feat. Kelso Deconstructed is a heartbreaking telling of the stabbing of an Antiguan immigrant by white youths in London in 1959, while Big Week takes us deep into the heart of a failed marriage, and Sentimental Education depicts a vivid relationship between three people at university.

But not all the stories revolve around nuanced characters - Lazy River (possibly my favourite story in the collection) is a meandering metaphor of mediocrity, critiquing current issues like social media and Brexit in Smith’s usual sharp and witty manner, while Two Men in a Village provides commentary on a sickening pattern of violence.

Overall, a solid collection with some more memorable than others, but a must for Smith fans! And I’ll be waiting on that fantasy novel...