Edgware Road: Yasmin Cordery Khan

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It’s 1981, and Khalid has big dreams for his future. He works in the West End, determined to attain the wealth displayed by the clients he encounters in the Playboy casino, determined “ to be the paymaster. Nothing else in the world could give you authority, and respect”. He’s also married to a beautiful woman and has a daughter, Alia. Always the optimist, when London Playboy is shut down, he’s not worried about losing his job. He’ll take a position with the company in the Bahamas. But alongside this optimism, Khalid is a gambler. He makes bad decisions, his relationship breaks down, he’s in serious debt, and so throws himself into an investment opportunity he's certain will solve all his problems, until his body is found washed-up far from home. We are still just about in Touristville at the southern end of Edgware Road, as evidenced by a carousel of royal postcards. But this is pretty much as far as most workaday tourists will venture. Alia’s father is Khalid, whom we meet first as a young man, a popular croupier in London’s Playboy Club. There are real people populating the story, and although I wasn’t familiar with the scandals, even I recognise some of the names, including Hugh Hefner, of course. That always makes something like this more interesting. The author is a highly regarded historian, and it’s obvious from this that she is very much at home writing about these people, places, and times. This story is filled with real life characters and events which made it all the more fun to read, this is one that grips you from the start as you become connected with the characters and find yourself wanting to understand what happened to Khalid. This is a very cleverly written book about corruption, migration and privilege. well worth a read.

The behemoth of a task ahead of him. (In fact the towering building, Capital House, commissioned the wry sculpture). A wide-ranging and affecting debut novel about family and identity, from an award-winning historian. Khalid can’t resist gambling himself, although not in the big clubs, which he couldn’t afford. He bets on the race and stops in at a local pub with a mate.These three narrative threads are interwoven into a compelling structure with some solid characters, each perspective alternating between 1987 and 2003. But Khalid’s story also displays youth and how the world actually is your oyster for a while, and there really is jam tomorrow; and that such truths can in rare circumstances be multiplied by emigration, where some combination of displacement and survival instinct can result in meteoric climbing, both social as well as financial. Just to the east, lies its Circle line cousin, where Allan Sly's sculpture of a window cleaner removes his cap and scratches his head in exasperation. Why?

But Khalid likes to gamble, and he likes to win. Twenty pounds on the fruit machine, fifty on a sure-thing horse, a thousand on an investment that seems certain to pay out. Now he's been offered a huge opportunity, a chance to get in early with a new bank, and it looks like he'll finally have his big win. In 2003, Khalid's daughter Alia has only hazy memories of her father, as she saw little of him after her parents' divorce, beyond infrequent meetings at Underground stations around London. When he was found dead in 1987, after failing to turn up to one of their father-daughter Tube meetings, the police put his death down to an accident - although the fact that his body was dragged from the Solent was rather odd for a man who lived in the Edgware Road. This loss has always left Alia feeling that she knows little about the Pakistani half of her heritage, and how this impacts her own sense of identity. The time has come for her to find out what sort of man Khalid was and why he ended his days in a watery grave... There were lots of topics discussed in this book that did sometimes leave me feel confused and feeling like I’d missed something. However, I did really enjoy the way it was written and I loved that all the characters’ stories were interconnected. Although, because the book was so gripping and the build-up to the end was so good, I was a tad disappointed by the ending. I think I just expected some sort of wow factor or an exciting twist at the end…However, the ending was still very good and made me sit and think for a while about everything that happened in this bookThe story is narrated through the eyes of Alia, initially as a child and later as an academic at Oxford University. As the novel progresses and Alia reaches adulthood, her writings and observations become more succinct. At times, the novel feels autobiographical given the fact the author is an Associate Professor at Oxford. Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures Khalid liked Irish pubs in any case. You could usually find someone to stand you a drink in O’Connors, or in the Rose of Tralee further down the road. In Khalid’s view, Sufism and Catholicism had a lot in common. Imran knew his views on the subject and was mostly in agreement. The Irish and the Asians, their own little people in a sea of imperial bastards.” I loved how the chapters intertwined from one timeline to another to keep the suspension and mystery of what happened to Khalid constantly going. The story itself is very beautifully written and at times with such detailed descriptions, I felt like I was in the book with those characters, looking at the world the way they saw it, living their life and feeling the emotions they felt. Honestly, not many books make me feel like I am in the story together with the characters, and that is one of the things that made this book really stand out for me. Continuing on, it strikes us how handsome much of the architecture is along here. An art deco gem is now inhabited by a Waitrose. And to think this looks like it was once a grand theatre or cinema. We later discover it was a Woolworths. You might argue it's a classier joint than it ever was before.

Take a Look at Our Summary of November Highlights, Whether You're Looking for the Latest Releases or Gift Inspiration And now, we reach the end of Edgware Road, as the Regent's Canal slices in at a right angle, and it becomes Maida Vale on the other side. Khan notes, ‘it [Edgware Road] was a Roman Road - dead straight - that goes out to Edgware….it starts in Mayfair and then it goes out to money transfer shops and suburbs.’ In 2003 Alia doesn’t remember much about her father. Her mum wouldn’t even talk about him. So, when he died she had no reason to think of foul play. It was always referred to as a sad accident, but now twenty years later she wants to know more. She wants to understand the other half of her heritage. She starts to think more about his death and is suspicious of how far his body was found from his usual stomping ground. She decides to find out more and travels out to Karachi where her father’s family are still settled. Her cousin Nadima meets her at the airport and her grandmother has brought the family together to meet her. She feels like someone who matters here and she’s surprised by the instant loyalty they seem to have, simply because she’s Khalid’s daughter. This gives her a sense of belonging to a line or tribe, something she’s never had before. I loved the contrast between British society in the 1980s to the 21stCentury. It was also interesting to see the difference when Alia went to Karachi and where she feels she is accepted more.A gripping family mystery with emotional depth and intriguing social context – Edgware Roadis a riveting, smartly-written debut.