Customer Reviews

Paradise Jazz

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A terrifically accomplished first novel with the themes of family, history and identity - large and thought-provoking subjects,largely told through the voices of two very contemporary young women in a multicultural society where no-one can be certain what history or culture really mean. Whatever binds these characters together, perhaps life really is "like jambalaya". Perhaps those who remember the 1960s have some reason to conceal things from those to whom the 1960s are just the last pages in the history book, but for the protagonist of this story the past really is a foreign country.

Plenty of meat in this book, then, but it's a good read, not at all heavy in tone and with a rich seam of humour; it neatly avoids the worthy and predictable portentousness and political correctness of many overtly similar novels, and mildly pokes fun at political activists. I read it quite quickly, as it has that "What on Earth will happen next?" quality, but will read it again to catch the deeper threads. Buy this, everyone will be talking about it soon. After all, we all know characters like these.