“Swing Time” by Zadie Smith: A Story of Growth Through Movement (BOOK REVIEW)

A Story of Growth Through Movement

Hey, Alex! What have you been reading lately?

When I came to university 3 years ago, the very first book on my reading list was Zadie Smith’s NW. It was experimental and disorienting, but I was drawn to how authentically the author captures life: its beauty, chaos, and contradictions. Since then, I’ve been revisiting her catalogue every year like a ritual.

Now that I’m done with university and in the process of moving out, I thought it’s only right to close this chapter of my life with another one of Smith’s works. So I picked up Swing Time. Funny story — my library card stopped working halfway through, so I had to order my own copy and wait (impatiently). I’ve been sitting with this novel for a while now. It’s one of those books that cuts your heart open and leaves you aching with questions.

Tell me more. What is the book about?

Swing Time is a novel about two girls growing up in North West London. One of them is Tracey, full of talent and untamed female rage, and the other is the narrator, who is nameless and extremely bright but shines only in her best friend’s shadow. As children, the two are inseparable, united by their love for dance and synchronised dreams. But life happens and they drift apart.

Eventually, the narrator starts working as a personal assistant to a global pop star, called Aimee. But fate keeps reuniting her with Tracey, for better or worse, and reminds her of what life could’ve been.

The book leaps across decades, continents, and relationships and follows the narrator as she struggles to find herself whilst living to make others happy. It explores performance, class, race, politics, and friendship and asks to accept one’s failures as not final but a lesson towards self-growth.

What are some strong and weak points of the book?

There’s so much I could talk about this book. But one of the strongest aspects in my opinion is the narrator’s relationship with her parents, especially her mother. At first, she idolises her: a strong woman dedicated to education, politics and self-development. Over time, however, that admiration sours into distance. Her mother becomes less of a mum and more of a symbol of perseverance, a reminder that the narrator will never be good enough.

So she looks for other women to follow: her best friend and her boss. Tracey has talent and Aimee has fame, but these are things the narrator can’t copy. Which is why she loses sense of who she is really.

The pacing is where the novel falters for me. The novel opens with a linear, coming-of-age arc. But once Aimee enters the picture, everything fractures. The timeline jumps back and forth, and characters blur — especially Tracey and Aimee, both performers in different ways. At points, it was hard to tell who the narrator was even talking about.

The story is packed with family drama, and, honestly, the narrator goes through so much it makes complete sense why she grows into such a selfless being. Her father, who I’d say is the most problematic but she feels most attached to somehow vanishes from the last hundred pages after his highly disturbing sexual fantasy gets revealed. It felt like the narrator deliberately tried to suppress any remaining memories of him — perhaps out of shame or embarrassment, or maybe he just got lost in the shuffle of the novel’s fractured chronology.

Any final thoughts? Should I read it too?

It is a book you will either find frustrating or powerful, but I think you should read it nonetheless, especially if you’ve ever felt unsure of where you are in life or where you are headed. The writing is rich, complex, and emotionally charged.

I find the narrator herself a fascinating character that needs to be studied under a closer lens. She has no name, no identity, but somehow manages to drive the plot and the people around her despite her passivity. She narrates the life of an international superstar, yet she doesn’t know how to satisfy her own needs. She acts from behind-the-scenes, whilst the women she looks up to are all performing on a stage she has no access to.

The novel ends with the death of the narrator’s mother and their inability to reach emotional reconciliation. Determined to stop watching how life passes her by and to start acting, the woman pays Tracey a visit at her old flat…only to find her best friend still dancing alongside her children.

It’s scary watching someone else lead the life you could’ve had. That’s probably why the narrator slips back into oblivion, frozen in time on that staircase, making us wonder if she will ever be able to join the others dancing upstairs.

Thank you so much!! Are there any similar books that you can recommend?

I haven’t read them myself yet, but based on what I’ve heard I think these 2 books fit well thematically. Feel free to check them out and share your thoughts:

📸 Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang — explores the idea of living in someone else’s shadow (in this case, the protagonist’s own twin sister!)

🧘‍♀️ Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert — also looks at travel, spiritual awakening, and the search of self

Happy reading!

📲 limaistyping…

rating: ☀️☀️☀️☀️
tropes: 👯‍♀️ best friends to strangers | 😴 passive protagonist | ⚖️ co-comparison | 🔮 failed dreams | ✈️ lots of travelling
read if you like: West End, long flights, tap dancing, generation-spanning stories, Pearl (2022)
look out for: 🤫 daddy’s double life | 🐣 one suspicious adoption | 🪩 two girls trying to be Anora | 🕺 Michael Jackson’s backup dancer | 💸 rich woman with a saviour complex
"This felt like going back in time, trying to find when things went wrong only to get tangled up in your own pain."