White Teeth

Starred review from April 3, 2000
The scrambled, heterogeneous sprawl of mixed-race and immigrant family life in gritty London nearly overflows the bounds of this stunning, polymathic debut novel by 23-year-old British writer Smith. Traversing a broad swath of cultural territory with a perfect ear for the nuances of identity and social class, Smith harnesses provocative themes of science, technology, history and religion to her narrative. Hapless Archibald Jones fights alongside Bengali Muslim Samad Iqbal in the English army during WWII, and the two develop an unlikely bond that intensifies when Samad relocates to Archie's native London. Smith traces the trajectory of their friendship through marriage, parenthood and the shared disappointments of poverty and deflated dreams, widening the scope of her novel to include a cast of vibrant characters: Archie's beautiful Jamaican bride, Clara; Archie and Clara's introspective daughter, Irie; Samad's embittered wife, Alsana; and Alsana and Samad's twin sons, Millat and Magid. Torn between the pressures of his new country and the old religious traditions of his homeland, Samad sends Magid back to Bangladesh while keeping Millat in England. But Millat falls into delinquency and then religious extremism, as earnest Magid becomes an Anglophile with an interest in genetic engineering, a science that Samad and Millat repudiate. Smith contrasts Samad's faith in providence with Magid's desire to seize control of the future, involving all of her characters in a debate concerning past and present, determinism and accident. The tooth--half root, half protrusion--makes a perfect trope for the two families at the center of the narrative. A remarkable examination of the immigrant's experience in a postcolonial world, Smith's novel recalls the hyper-contemporary yet history-infused work of Rushdie, sharp-edged, fluorescent and many-faceted. Agent, Georgia Garrett.

This first novel has been so universally praised that one fears for about two minutes that it must disappoint, but in truth Zadie Smith has the range and sense of humor of a postmodern Dickens. White Teeth is a saga of two London families. Archie Jones and Muslim immigrant Samard Iqbal, whose improbable friendship was forged during their service together in WWII, each marry much younger women in the same late year of their lives, and Samard's twin boys and Archie's half-Jamaican daughter grow up together. The number of characters, let alone accents, requires dazzling skill to perform--and prepare to be dazzled--as Jenny Sterlin works some kind of miracle with this wildly mad and impressive book. A marvelous audio experience. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine


This multicultural novel is populated with a diverse cast, including Caribbean and Muslim characters. That's why the range of narrators used to dramatize the three families, the Joneses, Iqbals, and Chalfens, is essential to the listening experience. Lenny Henry, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Ray Panthaki, and Sagar Arya work together to create a juxtaposition of immigrant lives. The narrators alternate between the memories and antics of two fathers, Archie and Samad, and their children. The story explores the tensions between immigrants and native-born Britons in contemporary London. Arya captures the frustrations of Iqbal, making real his dislocation and discomfort. Bennett-Warner makes the most of the character Irie. Make sure there are no children present while enjoying this irreverent audiobook. M.R. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine