Londonstani by Gautam Malkani

'Londonstani', Gautam Malkani's electrifying debut, reveals a Britain that has never before been explored in the novel: a country of young Asians and white boys (desis and goras) trying to work out a place for themselves in the shadow of the divergent cultures of their parents' generation.Set close to the Heathrow feed roads of Hounslow, Malkani shows us the lives of a gang of four young men: Hardjit the ring leader, a Sikh, violent, determined his caste stay pure; Ravi, determinedly tactless, a sheep following the herd; Amit, whose brother Arun is struggling to win the approval of his mother for the Hindu girl he has chosen to marry; and Jas who tells us of his journey with these three, desperate to win their approval, desperate too for Samira, a Muslim girl, which in this story can only have bad consequences. Together they cruise the streets in Amit's enhanced Beemer, making a little money changing the electronic fingerprints on stolen mobile phones, a scam that leads them into more dangerous waters.Funny, crude, disturbing, written in the vibrant language of its protagonists – a mix of slang, Bollywood, texting, Hindu and bastardised gangsta rap – 'Londonstani' is about many things: tribalism, aggressive masculinity, integration, cross-cultural chirpsing techniques, the urban scene seeping into the mainstream, bling bling economics, 'complicated family-related shit'. It is one of the most surprising British novels of recent years.

I kept reading about the terrible horrible, no good, very bad plot twist, but nothing could have prepared me for it.
It's one of those literary moves that could make or break a novel and I'm not completely sure whether it breaks it or it makes it.
It shatters every single thing you have come to believe about the main character, Jas, turning a quite superficial novel about adolescence and stupidity into a very uncomfortable piece about identity, perception and, I suppose, mental illness.

So, why the two stars?
The plot twist's timing and execution.
Although I don't know how Malkani could have done it any differently, I think it's the gem and the fatal flaw of this book. Its purpose is, if possible, too of open for debate.
At the end of Londonstani I'm not shocked by the intrinsic existential void it depicts, I don't feel any urge to gain a better understanding of our consumerist society and I'm left unable to empathize with an unlikable main character that is all there is to the book.

On the back it says: “‘breathless - hilarious and convincing' The New York Times”.

I say: long-winded, occasionally brilliant, sometimes deeply disappointing, ratty, coward. A con of a book that I'm unwilling to praise but certainly can't ignore.

A complex book to review and rate - and if you intend to read I would suggest steering clear of many of the reviews which contain a spoiler to the twist which occurs at the very end of the book. I won't mentioned the twist again, other than to say it is polarising to readers.

The author is a journalist for the Financial Times, and his book is set where he grew up in West London, popular with middle class Indian & Pakistani families. Hounslow is the specific setting where the protagonist and narrator of the novel Jas lives. He has been recently accepted into the company of Hardjit, Amit and Ravi who live a Rudeboy lifestyle while re-sitting their A levels they all failed the year prior. They drive suped-up cars provided by their parents, they have a sideline in unlocking mobile phones, and spend most of their time preening and posing, talking themselves up and distancing themselves from their parents behaviours - typical youth I guess, within an Asian twist.

People are always trying to stick a label on our scene. That's the problem with having a fuckin scene. First we was rudeboys, then we'd be Indian niggas, then rajamuffins, then rajastanis, Brit-Asians, fuckin Indo-Brits. These days we try and use our own word for homeboy and so we just call ourselves desis, but I still remember when we were happy with the word rudeboy.Anyway, whatever the fuck we are, Ravi and the others are better at being it than I am. I swear I watched as much MTV-base an Juggy D videos as they have but I still can't attain the right level of rudeboy authenticity. If I could, I wouldn't be using poncey words like attain an authenticity, innit.