{"id":50531,"date":"2016-12-11T21:41:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T21:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=50531"},"modified":"2016-12-12T00:04:30","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T00:04:30","slug":"zadie-smiths-swing-time-is-a-dance-to-the-rhythms-of-womanhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=50531","title":{"rendered":"Zadie Smith\u2019s Swing Time is a dance to the rhythms of womanhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zadie Smith\u2019s <\/strong><\/em>Swing Time<\/strong> is a dance to the rhythms of womanhood<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

iNews<\/a>
\n2016-11-02<\/p>\n

Salena Godden<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Zadie Smith<\/a>, Swing Time<\/em><\/a> (New York: Penguin Press, 2016)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Swing Time<\/em><\/a> is a quiet and rhythmic book. Just as the title suggests, this book swings, oscillating from past to present, like the steady rhythm of a pendulum.<\/p>\n

This is the story of two brown girls who dream of dancing. Tracey is the skint<\/a> but talented one; our unnamed first person narrator\u2026 not so much. Where Tracey\u2019s mother serves Angel Delight<\/a> in a kitchen with a cork board heaving with gold medals, our narrator\u2019s mother wears a cocked beret and keeps her head buried in books to better herself.<\/p>\n

Living on the same estate<\/a>, the mothers come from two different worlds, and the girls\u2019 friendship blossoms awkwardly. They compare and compete, outgrow each other to take different paths, then come full circle.<\/p>\n

This is a book about living in the spotlight and living in the wings. It time-travels using music and dance, from north London<\/a> to west Africa<\/a>, from the ghosts of Chicago<\/a> swing<\/a> to Hollywood<\/a> musicals, jazz and ragtime, to reggae and the golden era of hip-hop. It is also, centrally, about female friendships: the strange envy one might feel when a friend seems to be moving on, moving away, moving faster, almost betraying us with their successful career or by having a baby or getting married. We all have had that friend or maybe we are that friend to someone else…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zadie Smith\u2019s Swing Time is a dance to the rhythms of womanhood iNews 2016-11-02 Salena Godden Zadie Smith, Swing Time (New York: Penguin Press, 2016) Swing Time is a quiet and rhythmic book. Just as the title suggests, this book swings, oscillating from past to present, like the steady rhythm of a pendulum. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,10],"tags":[25686,25665,1344],"class_list":["post-50531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-inews","tag-salena-godden","tag-zadie-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50561,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50531\/revisions\/50561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}