White teeth : a novel

Summary: On New Year's morning, 1975, Archie Jones sits in his car on a London road and waits for the exhaust fumes to fill his Cavalier Musketeer station wagon. Archie--working-class, ordinary, a failed marriage under his belt--is calling it quits, the deciding factor being the flip of a 20-pence coin. When the owner of a nearby halal butcher shop (annoyed that Archie's car is blocking his delivery area) comes out and bangs on the window, he gives Archie another chance at life and sets in motion this richly imagined, uproariously funny novel. Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England.

Record details

ISBN: 0375703861
ISBN: 9780375703867
ISBN: 1417626283
ISBN: 9781417626281
Physical Description: print
448 pages ; 21 cm
Edition: 1st Vintage International ed.
Publisher: New York : Vintage International, 2001, ©2000.

Content descriptions

General Note:	"Originally published ... by Hamish Hamilton, London, and subsequently ... by Random House, Inc., New York, in 2000"--Title page verso.
Formatted Contents Note:	Acknowledgments -- Archie 1974, 1945: The peculiar second marriage of Archie Jones ; Teething trouble ; Two families ; Three coming ; The root canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal -- Samad 1984, 1857: The temptation of Samad Iqbal ; Molars ; Mitosis ; Mutiny! ; The root canals of Mangal Pande -- Irie 1990, 1907: The miseducation of Irie Jones ; Canines : the ripping teeth ; The root canals of Hortense Bowden ; More English than the English ; Chalfenism versus Bowdenism -- Magid, Millat, And Marcus 1992, 1999: The return of Magid Mahfooz Murshed Mubtasim Iqbal ; Crisis talks and eleventh-hour tactics ; The end of history versus the last man ; Final space ; Of mice and memory.
Awards Note:	Guardian First Book Award, 2000. James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, 2000. Whitbread Award, 2000.