When White Teeth was published in 2000, Zadie Smith was quickly lauded as the newest sensation of Western letters. However, the book did have its fair share of critics - including James Wood, who lumped Smith into an emerging trend of writers he dubbed 'hysterical realism.' This week, Mandy and Mio give a broad overview of this trend, go a little crazy while trying to connect the novel's many side characters, and talk a bit about the time Nick Joaquin crashed a university stageplay.

cw: spoilers, plot involves mentions of Nazis, religious extremism, arranged marriage, age difference, young pregnancy, marital infidelity, and mentions of spousal physical abuse

tw: Mentions of a rape scene - 1:00:55-1:01:05 and 1:09:30-1:09:40

Show notes:

- "Human, All Too Inhuman" by James Wood in The New Republic

- "This is how it feels to me" by Zadie Smith in The Guardian

- White Teeth limited series on Channel 4: Episode 1 "The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones"

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Our theme music: 64 Sundays by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/