The Review of Contemporary Fiction
The Black Album by Hanif KureishiMichael Reder
Hanif Kureishi. The Black Album. Scribner, 1995. 276 pp. $22.00; paper: $11.00.
The Black Album is the second novel written by this hip, energetic, and talented English writer who is the author of the screenplays for My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. The third-person narration centers on Shahid, a college student in West London in 1989 who comes from an affluent, nonpracticing Muslim family in Kent. Kureishi, who recently co-edited The Faber Book of Pop, packs his novel with references to current theater, art, music, literature, and events, including The Godfather, Toni Morrison, Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Scarface, Prince (whose obscure album gives the book its title), A Clockwork Orange, and an assortment of music videos. One current event central to the story is the controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.
We first see Shahid in the hallway of his student flat as he meets the enigmatic Riaz Al-Hussain, a prophetlike community activist, writer, and leader of a group of Islamic college students. Riaz and his followers quickly enlist Shahid’s help with their political projects, including the protection of an Indian family being harassed on a housing estate. Shahid is specially selected to wash Riaz’s laundry (which is quickly stolen), and to transcribe Riaz’s religious poetry. In an event that parallels both the story in The Satanic Verses and the controversy surrounding it, Shahid creatively transcribes Riaz’s poetry, and trouble ensues.
Shahid has come to the college to study with a young instructor named Deedee Osgood, whose sign above her desk reads “All limitations are prisons.” Shortly after Shahid becomes Deedee’s student, they sleep together, but Shahid is determined to keep this half of his life concealed from Riaz and his followers, who would condemn Shahid’s time spent with Deedee making love, dancing, and experimenting with drugs. Shahid’s life gets even more complicated when his older brother, Chili—into cars, money, drugs, and sex—seeks help from Shahid when his own life spirals out of control.
Shahid is a person adrift, easily led in one direction and then another. Although the novel addresses with wit and humor many pressing issues such as racism, the conflict between art and religion, and the plight of immigrants, it is unable to fuse the action of Shahid’s story and the ideas Kureishi wishes to examine. In spite of this fault, The Black Album is packed with energy, is full of humor, and makes for a lively, entertaining read. [Michael Reder]