NW by Zadie Smith

I do not think I totally got this book. The reviewers just liked it so much more than I did. I am disappointed, because I really like the other two books that I have read by her. My first exposure to Zadie Smith was several years ago when I read all the books that my son was reading in a contemporary British literature course he took in college. I got behind in the reading immediately--the course started with 'Kepler' by John Banville. I hated it, struggled with each and every page. After a while I realized it was Kepler I disliked, misogynist that he apparently was--but I had trouble separating the character from the book. The next book was 'Possession, by A.S. Byatt, which in the end I absolutely loved, but I could not read it in synch with the class. So it was 'On Beauty' that was the first book that I read cover to cover on time--and in one sitting, en route to a lovely several days in Puerto Rico. I just loved it. So not loving this is a let down. The book is loosely linked to 'White Teeth', featuring four characters who share an upbringing in a less than privledged London neighborhood. They are grown ups, and yet largely not coping all that well. There is not the social context that I have found in the other two novels by Smith, so the characters seem unrooted without any reall reflection on why that might be. They do odd things for unexplained reasons, culminating in an ending more suitable for a murder mystery than serious fiction.