City of Spades by Colin MacInnes (London Trilogy #1)
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Overview: The first novel in the trilogy is about race relations in England in the 1950s. West Indians are arriving en masse in England and the government realises there is a problem. A small branch of the Colonial department is given the task of dealing with the problem and Montgomery Pew is the officer entrusted with the task. His first client is Johnny Fortune, newly arrived from Nigeria, allegedly to study. Fortune’s friend, Hamilton, is already in London and introduces him to the black life of London. Pew soon gets involved in the London West Indian culture and also involves Theodora, who lives in the same building as he does and who works for the BBC. Most of the novel is MacInnes’ tribute to the black culture of London, with all its foibles (petty theft, drugs, etc.), and the unfair treatment it gets at the hands of the dominant white culture. While all this is now obvious, at the time it was revolutionary for a white writer to say such a thing. MacInnes brings in all aspects of black culture – African, West Indian and even USA, and shows the differences and rivalries between the different cultures.
Johnny takes up with Muriel who is the daughter of the (white) woman his father had an affair with many years ago but then gets set up by the police. Pew loses his job but doesn’t seem to care and he and Theodora work to get Johnny legal help to set him free. Of course, it all more or less works out in the end but the pleasure of this book is not the plot, it is the affectionate portrait of London’s black culture.
Genre: Fiction > General Fiction/Classics
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