At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England's irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn't quite match her name (Jamaican for "no problem"). Samad's late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal's every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith.;Acknowledgments -- Archie 1974, 1945 -- 1: Peculiar second marriage of Archie Jones -- 2: Teething trouble -- 3: Two families -- 4: Three coming -- 5: Root canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal -- Samad 1984, 1857 -- 6: Temptation of Samad Iqbal -- 7: Molars -- 8: Mitosis -- 9: Mutiny! -- 10: Root canals of Mangal Pande -- Irie 1990, 1907 -- 11: Mis education of Irie Jones -- 12: Canines: the ripping teeth -- 13: Root canals of Hortense Bowden -- 14: More English than the English -- 15: Chalfenism versus Bowdenism -- Magid, Millat, And Marcus 1992, 1999 -- 16: Return of Magid Mahfooz Murshed Mubtasim Iqbal -- 17: Crisis talks and eleventh-hour tactics -- 18: End of history versus the last man -- 19: Final space -- 20: Of mice and memory.