Grand Union

Zadie Smith, who narrates the first and last of the 19 stories in her collection, vividly explores people's complex lives. This audiobook includes published pieces from THE NEW YORKER as well as new works. Smith's low pitch and English accent make this work sound calm and literary--as if she is narrating to a familiar audience. Doc Brown's narration of the other 17 stories is an entertaining ebb and flow of energy. He employs different accents and plays with pitch. There is a soulful moment when he transitions into singing and then naturally falls back into his speaking voice. He is musical and colloquial in specific stories like "Big Week" and "Meet the President." Brown's enjoyable narration adds to Smith's well-established reputation as a writer. T.E.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Smith’s debut novel White Teeth was published to great success and acclaim in 2000 and she’s been establishing herself as a creative powerhouse ever since. Her writing is political and provocative, cunning and funny. There’s nothing as obvious as a singular genre or theme to connect the short stories in her latest collection, Grand Union. At times this feels a bit like whiplash, but it also allows Smith to show off her diverse skills as a writer, slipping into all manner of styles, genres and voices. The speculative and sci-fi stories are hit and miss, but ‘Escape from New York’ – in which three friends escape Manhattan in a rental car – is brilliant, as backseat bickering plays out against a backdrop of impending apocalypse. Stories like ‘Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets’, in which an ageing drag queen is sent running through New York; and the autofictional ‘For the King’, pack serious bite. Others, like ‘Lazy River’ and ‘Downtown’ are self-aware to the point of caving back in on themselves; somewhat strained and bloated. Though not all the elements land, Grand Union is an energising collection, vibrant and rebellious and definitely worthwhile. Reviewed by Emma Harvey

Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Marlon Brando are driving out of Manhattan after a terrorist attack. What sounds like the opening of an urban myth is actually the zany plotline of “Escape from New York,” one of 19 tales in Zadie Smith’s first collection of short stories, Grand Union. These masterful tales impress, engage and occasionally infuriate as Smith brings her dazzling wit and acute sensitivity to bear. These stories are ready to grapple with the complex times we live in. If anything serves this collection best, it’s the humor that runs through the stories like a lazy river. All genres are Smith’s to play with, from fables to science fiction to a realistic conversation between two friends. Even the few weaker efforts still brim with ideas and intelligence. No subjects are off-limits, from an older trans woman shopping for shapewear in “Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets” to a young mother remembering her sexual escapades in college in “Sentimental Education.” Smith uses the third-person plural to fine effect in one of the collection’s best, the parable “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” which explores global politics without ever mentioning a politician or country by name. Smith has explored the complexities of families and friendships in an urban setting over the course of five award-winning novels. Those themes are reflected in the delightful “Words and Music,” in which the surviving sister of an elderly pair of siblings sits in a Harlem apartment, reminiscing about the music that shaped her life, and in “For the King,” in which two old friends catch up over a decadent Parisian meal. Grand Union is bookended by two stories of mothers and daughters—one a vignette, the other a ghost story, both with a depth that far outweighs their brevity, something that can be truthfully said for each of these stories.