Book review: NW, By Zadie Smith

Smith's Women's prize shortlisted novel returns her to home turf: Willesden, the north west corner of London in which she was raised and on whose streets her protagonists' lives intersect first as council estate kids, then drift apart and intersect again over intervening decades, into adulthood and family life.

It is a simple conceit but Smith gives us a subtle, complex and compelling slice of urban life, with its class-riddled comprised choices, its pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and its tragically disenfranchised lives.