“Brick Lane”
by Monica Ali
Published: May 2004
ISBN: 0743243315

(Updated: August 24, 2005.)

From the Publisher…

After an arranged marriage to Chanu, a man twenty years older, Nazneen is taken to London, leaving her home and heart in the Bangladeshi village where she was born. Her new world is full of mysteries. How can she cross the road without being hit by a car (an operation akin to dodging raindrops in the monsoon)? What is the secret of her bullying neighbor Mrs. Islam? What is a Hell”s Angel? And how must she comfort the naïve and disillusioned Chanu?

As a good Muslim girl, Nazneen struggles to not question why things happen. She submits, as she must, to Fate and devotes herself to her husband and daughters. Yet to her amazement, she begins an affair with a handsome young radical, and her erotic awakening throws her old certainties into chaos.

Monica Ali”s splendid novel is about journeys both external and internal, where the marvellous and the terrifying spiral together.

What a lovely book!

I am still amazed at the depth, detail, character and action in this novel — particularly given that most of it happens in Nazneen and Chanu’s one and only and always the same apartment.

Lovely, lovely, lovely. Definitely recommended. A four (and a half :o) out of five hearts.