Zoya Patel

And it really seems to be a kind of middle ground ambivalence.

She really either inspires, you know, adoration or dread in me.

Well, I loved White Teeth and I loved Swing Time.

I really did not like Northwest NW, which I don't think I even finished it.

I got kind of a quarter of the way through and then just couldn't bring myself to continue.

And The Autograph Man as well, I hated.

And I really thought I loved On Beauty when I was, I read it when I was still in high school.

And then I reread it recently and I hated it.

So I don't know, maybe I can only read them once.

I'm a millennial.

We only do things in extremes.

I think that's such a lovely way of putting it that it kind of takes us through these different physical environments because it very much does feel like a series of portraits.

And I had actually just returned from visiting New York when I read the collection.

And so it really struck me because the way the book made me feel was similar to the way that New York City made me feel, which was quite nice.

I think the overarching theme that maybe connects the stories, and this is a bit of a stretch because they're all very, very different,

is that they're just kind of glimpses.

They feel like vignettes, as if just as you're starting to get into the rhythm or there's some sense of a pattern or narrative emerging, she'll cut you off.

So they all left me wanting a little bit more.

I think there are a lot of moments like that throughout the collection, actually, where it almost breaks the fourth wall and you think...

it is Zadie speaking, you can hear her kind of sardonic tone come through.