From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Prolific screenwriter, playwright and novelist Kureishi has a gift for smart, sparkling prose and expertly crafted characters, and it is on full display in his latest, the funny and heartbreaking story of Jamal Khan, a successful middle-aged London psychoanalyst dogged by a crushing secret and a long-burning torch for his first love. Jamal's son, Rafi, and ex-wife, Josephine, are still very much involved in Jamal's life, but nobody knows that Jamal is still profoundly in love with his high school girlfriend, Ajita, or that his connection to her is soiled by his complicity in a long-ago violent crime. As an analyst, he knows just how haunting the past can be (Secrets are my currency, he informs the reader), and he makes a convincing and often comedic case that madness is an ordinary, unsurprising part of contemporary life. The father-son relationship is especially brilliant, and Kureishi is adept as ever in balancing humor and his piercing insight into the human condition. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Jamal is a London-based psychoanalyst who could use some sessions of his own. The middle-aged divorcΓ© continues to be obsessed with thoughts of his first love. He met Ajita at university, and no woman since, including Jamalβ²s ex-wife, Josephine, has possessed her beauty, brains, and wit. But lost love is not the worst of Jamalβ²s problems. He has never confessed to the murder he and two shady mates committed during their student years. Kureishi, a Whitbread''Β Prize winner and two-time Oscar-nominated screenwriter (Venus and''Β My Beautiful Laundrette), conjures a confessional tale in which Jamal endlessly ruminates upon the good and ill in his life. Itβ²s a bit wearying at times, despite a colorful cast of characters. Among them: Henry, a quirky theater director and incorrigible gossip; Miriam, Jamalβ²s mercurial sister, with a conspicuous collection of piercings and tattoos; and London itself, endlessly eclectic and electric. Kureishi has created an intriguing character in Jamal. But the novelβ²s ending is a letdown, after so much angst and ado. --Allison Block