Acquired off of bookmooch.

I really enjoyed this book. Told in four voices, the novel explores racism in post-war England. But it really is more than that. It explores marriage and relationships and community and expectations. Two marriage: Queenie and Bernard, two white Londoners, and Hortence and Gilbert, two Jamaicans who believed London would offer them greater opportunity. For me, Hortence was the most fascinating voice in the novel, a woman so sure of what she wants, so determined, and yet so impossibly naive. Gilbert, her husband, was pragmatic to the point of desperation until Hortence joins him in London snd shakes him out his complacency. Queenie, stuck in a loveless marriage to a husband who mysteriously doesnt return home from WW2, has to make her own way in a bombed out shell of a city so she rents out rooms to Jamaicans, much to the chagrin of her neighbours. And Bernard, who doesnt understand why Queenie doesnt adore him the way his mother did, doesnt understand why the world doesnt see his potential, with inbred ideas about status and his "rights" that are blown to bits, along with much of the world, by WW2.

I expected this book to be a "heavy" read, but it was not. It was relatively easy to read, with delightful characters thst you liked and rooted for even when they were behaving like jackasses. The author subtly uses humour to diffuse heavier situations. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thoughtful, character-driven novels with deep moral cores. It is a gem.

Given to my niece