Buy this book

David Bowden
posted 10 May 2006

The debut novel by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal promises to be a 'filthy, unflinching and politically incorrect take on modern Britain.' Whilst there remains much truth in the claim you should never judge a book by its cover (and the over-excitable marketing speak contained within) there is also a sad fact that some books seem to be written primarily with their blurbs in mind.

Tourism is a book that longs to be hated; every page seems specifically designed to shock, offend and outrage. Dhaliwal clearly aspires to the infamy afforded to notoriously blunt and sexually explicit novelists such as Michel Houellebecq - a comparison the cover helpfully points us towards. His basic premise is a noble one: he seeks to provide an honest account of life for modern Anglo-Sikhs - far removed from the old traditions of their immigrant parents but not fully integrated, through class and race, into British society (the 'tourists' of the title) - free of the politically correct, post-colonial posturing of his fellow minority writers, who he has accused of speaking more to white, liberal sensibilities rather to their own kind.

To this end, he presents us with the cynical and emotionally cold Bhupinder 'Puppy' Singh Johal - a London-bred journalist who does little more than take drugs with his rich, white (and invariably homosexual) friends, have sex with his rich, white and vapid wannabe-model girlfriend, and fail to remember to attend his little brother's wedding. He takes time out from pursuing his unrequited lust for the beautiful and powerful businesswoman Sarupa to muse on the state of Western capitalism, miscegenation and self-loathing.

Dhaliwal's less than harmonious take on contemporary British multiculturalism is an attempt to provide an antidote to the well-meaning-but-patronising media fanfare that greeted novels like Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Zadie Smith's White Teeth for providing 'authentic' Asian voices from well-educated, suburbanised British writers. Dhaliwal's approach is rougher, and he seems anxious to confront diffcult issues. The only problem is that it's not entirely clear what difficult issue he is confronting in Tourism. Is it that Britain's Asian youth are angry and disaffected, torn between the pious repression of their upbringing and the fleshly delights of the West? Is it that the white ruling classes have become so crippled by colonial guilt and their godless ways that they can only take refuge in wild, pointless hedonism while their racial underlings are becoming increasingly rich and influential? Is it that gay men can't help but throw themselves at Johal's feet any time he flutters his crotch at them?

Too often his sardonic observations fall down flat: one joke, about a gay rapper with a stereotypical hip-hop 'bling' video seems clever - until you realise that the gay, white (and English) rapper Q-Boy has been getting mainstream press for several years. Likewise, the constant sneery claims that it's impossible to travel in central London without a car is either a very bad joke or, more likely, an unsuccessful attempt to sound snobbishly materialistic. The novel's supposed homophobia often comes off as just that: an attempt to offend liberal sensibilities, whilst never truly convincing the reader that the writer holds such views himself.

But, then again, maybe I'm missing the point. Before the book was even on sale Dhaliwal was bemoaning the difficulty he faced, as a young Sikh writer, in getting published as a writer of fiction: he admitted that (in terms eerily similar to the situations of James Frey and JT Leroy) he had to market it as a semi-autobiographical voice of an 'authentic' Asian writer. As the infamously callous and insensitive husband featured in Liz Jones' autobiographical Mail on Sunday columns, Dhaliwal has certainly capitalised on an existing persona in his narrative voice. In a publishing world where not even a Booker prize winner, VS Naipaul's In A Free State, can get attention when submitted as the work of an unknown, it is an association this writer is wise to maintain.

It is interesting that it is Houellebecq to whom his publishers want us to be in mind of: little over a decade ago the obvious point of reference would have been Martin Amis. Like early Amis, Tourism is at its best when it feels confident enough in its own superior sense of wit (when he compares Greg Dyke's head to a 'shining, turgid phallus') and, like later Amis, suffers most when it tries to play it straight. While there are niggling errors and petty annoyances (and there was a time when debut novelists could be excused for such failings) Tourism paints a vivid picture of life in 21st century London.