50 pages • 1 hour read
Hanif KureishiA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Eva moves her family to a derelict three-room apartment in London. She has wonderful plans for redoing the apartment. Karim loves the apartment and revels in the city. Charlie is drawn to the apartment too, because of its location in London.
Karim is happier in London because there are more black and brown faces; he feels like he stands out less. He finds a local club, the Nashville, which offers great live music.
Karim takes Charlie to the Nashville, where Charlie gets extremely drunk. Karim notices the crowd looks very different—the kids have dyed black hair sticking up in spikes, and wear ripped and torn black clothing held together with safety pins. They spit at and bite each other. When the show starts, the music is an assault on the senses, and the band spits on and curses at the audience.
Charlie is riveted; he immediately senses that these kids are the future, and that the 1960s era of peace and love is gone forever. At the end of the night, he runs after a car full of punks and jumps in. Charlie and Karim have discovered punk rock.