Something to Tell You

Something to Tell You follows the fortunes of a successful psychoanalyst who, as the book opens, is reflecting on his coming-of-age in 1970s suburbia, on his first love (a relationship that continues to haunt him), and on a brutal act of violence from which he can never escape. The book brilliantly captures that decade’s sense of sexual freedom, and the exhilaration of the drug culture - as well as the violent struggle between the forces of labour and capital. The events of those years provide a vivid backdrop to the drama that develops thirty years later as the characters face an encroaching middle age with the traumas of their youth still unresolved. Something to Tell You speaks directly to our nation’s concerns and anxieties, and to our need for love. Like The Buddha of Suburbia , it is full-to-bursting with energy as the characters struggle with desire. At times comic, at times painfully tender, the book is a reflection on the nature of relations between men and women, parents and children. With unfailing deftness of touch Kureishi has created a memorable cast of recognisable individuals, all of whom wrestle with their own limits as human beings, haunted by the past until they find it within themselves to forgive.