Beauty
Raphael Selbourne
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
304 |
| RRP |
£7.99 |
| Date of Publication |
September 2009 |
| ISBN |
978-0955647673 |
| Publisher |
Tindal Street Press |
| |
Beauty - in both name and appearance - is a twenty-year-old Bangladeshi, back in England having shocked her family by fleeing an abusive arranged marriage. Now she is forced onto the jobseekers' treadmill. Her fractious encounters with officialdom, fellow claimants, strangers and passers-by in the city streets, exacerbated by the restrictions (and comfort) of her language and culture, place her at the mercy of such unlikely helpers as Mark, a friendly, dog-owning ex-offender, and Peter, the middle-class underachiever on the rebound from a bitter relationship. Such 'white' influences conflict with the pressure to toe the family religious line, enforced by her older brother, but enable Beauty to understand better how free will and parental care affect her personal destiny in fragmented inner-city England today.
Reviews
The Financial Times
Adrian Turpin
"Selbourne brilliantly plays out a comedy of conflicting cultural and class expectations, repeatedly confounding reader’s expectations when contrasts between “white” and “Asian”, “yob” and “toff” values threaten to become too obvious. He captures perfectly an England of pound shops and Jobcentres with “client beverage facilities”. Through Beauty herself, he gives the tale of the innocent abroad an original twist."
30/09/2009
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The Independent
William Palmer
"Selbourne writes convincingly both of Beauty's Bengali household and Mark's working-class world of casual sex, pubs and hard manual labour. Grim and threatening, this first novel is also occasionally very funny."
10/09/2009
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The Guardian
Catherine Taylor
"There is something uncomfortably symbolic about the character of Beauty, and more than a whiff of sociology thesis about the whole enterprise which stretches credibility. Selbourne redeems himself through sharp dialogue and a grim doggedness of purpose."
26/09/2009
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