NW

The backstory of Leah and Natalie/Keisha partially explains the conflicts that each face throughout NW, namely, their struggle to find purpose and meaning in their lives. On one hand, they grow close over shared experiences and likes—music, boys, school, play, time spent at each other’s houses, and other essentially normal aspects of urban life. On the other hand, their distinct personalities are evident nearly from the start.

Keisha is intelligent, curious, and driven to succeed academically. She approaches the entire world with an analytical frame of mind, expressing this through everything from writing computer programs to a systematic discussion of the “charged question of clitoral versus vaginal orgasm” (222). While Leah is no failure, her motivations are less defined, and she is pulled more by a curiosity about people than about knowledge; as the narrator puts it, “no one ever mistook Keisha’s cerebral willfulness for her friend’s generosity of spirit” (210). This is nowhere more evident than when a mutual friend divulges to Leah and Keisha that her mother was raped by her cousin, who is thus her father. Keisha is rather unaffected, while the other two weep. In their later teen years, these distinct personalities play a part in the two friends’ drifting apart. Though they reunite and continue their friendship, their differences are more openly evident than before. 

NW makes clear that the differences between Keisha and Leah are not simply a matter of personality, however, but are more broadly indicative of London’s socio-cultural diversity. Leah’s white, English-Irish family is educated and professionalized. Keisha’s family emigrated from Jamaica and is working-class. “Host” repeatedly emphasizes that family influences behavior. Leah’s mother and father appear relatively hands-off, corresponding to their daughter’s free and open spirit. Keisha’s mother, Marcia, is far more controlling. She shows her ability to influence even the strong-willed and intelligent Keisha after discovering her vibrator, initiating the break between Leah and Keisha, and setting Keisha up with a boyfriend of Marcia’s choosing, Rodney. 

NW makes one of its geographically minded points by suggesting that the intersection of cultures that happens in Leah and Keisha’s friendship is possible because of the diversity that exists in northwest London’s cosmopolitan space, where residents with distinct cultures and identities live next to each other. At the same time, NW suggests another reality of this cosmopolitanism—some residents resist and flee this multiculturalism—when the Hanwells move out of the neighborhood. The impact of cultural and socio-economic differences is also illustrated by the lower-class Keisha’s academic excellence yet limited college choices, for instance.

Stylistically, “Host” picks up where the literary experimentalism of “Visitation” left off. This part of the novel is composed of 184 sections—some as short as a sentence, others as long as a few pages—showcasing a wide range of genres and styles, including straightforward narratives, lists, directions, and aphorisms. It also evidences literary play. For example, Keisha decides that the number 37 is unlucky after Leah decides not to go with her to church one day and instead takes a bus of that number to visit friends in another area. In a subtle gesture, “Host” then omits a section numbered 37 and instead jumps from section 36 to section 38. By a strange coincidence, it is apartment number 37 that Shar lives in and Leah stops by in “Visitation” to deliver addiction recovery leaflets. The stylistic experimentation and rapid shifts of “Host” mimic the confusion, clash of social classes, and general unsettledness of London life.