rom its onset, Londonstani, Gautum Malkini’s profane and deeply compelling tale of immigrant assimilation, racism and machismo, lives up to the significant hype that preceded its release. Within the book’s first chapter, an unfortunate “gora” finds himself on the receiving end of a vicious beating by a South Asian gang leader, abruptly introducing readers to the harsh reality of the “rudeboy” culture.

Malkini’s debut novel follows the darkly comic narrative of the second generation protagonist, Jas, from a skinny teacher’s pet into his dramatic reinvention as an abrasive hyper-masculine rudeboy, an identity based on a haphazard concoction of MTV gangster rap culture, American consumer materialism and Bollywood cinema. In manner becoming increasingly prevalent in Western immigrant communities, Jas’s gang asserts their macho identities onto the unwitting residents of their hometown of Hounslow, London.

Jas, however, remains insecure in his new identity, envious of the authenticity of his new friends’ meticulously crafted façades while subtly acknowledging the irony of adopting these identities in place of real ones. His wry and passive internal monologue is told through a unique slang-dialect which extends through the narration of the novel. Once penetrated, Jas’s profound insights and his inability to learn from them, reveal his precarious position in both of his worlds: the dutiful British Indian immigrant and the alien environment of the gang sub-culture. Perhaps most importantly, Malkini uses Jas’s internal struggle to demonstrate the numerous cultural forces that are set in opposition to each other in immigrant London.

The group’s assault on Hounslow also includes terrorizing unsuspecting East Indians for driving inexpensive cars and listening to “white music” and fighting rival gangs in ceremoniously self aggrandizing public spectacles. At the same time the gang pursues and achieves a perceived gangster high life through a small time illegal cell phone operation. While they act abrasively to everyone around them, the group still harbors deep respect, rooted mainly in fear, for their parents, and in particular their mothers who the novel portrays as grossly over protective and emasculating figures and “would rather their sons remain boys.”

This cultural confusion is further deepened in a side plot involving a gang member’s brother. The brother finds his upcoming wedding continually sabotaged by his passive aggressive mother’s petty complaints towards the bride-to-be’s caste and their supposed disrespectfulness to the bridegroom’s family. For his part, Jas compounds matters when he enters into a taboo relationship with a Muslim girl, which for certainty of violence, must be kept secret from her brothers and his own hard-line Sikh friends. Jas soon finds himself caught in a web of lies, crime, violence and cultural intrigue from which he must negotiate an escape.

The originality and delivery of the novel’s narrative, particularly the textual presentation of the dialogue makes the exploration of these themes undeniably engaging. A meticulously crafted pop culture landscape, reminiscent of a surreal faux gangster dystopia, provides the perfect backdrop for the novel’s plot. At times the narrative delves into the murky terrain of implausibility, particularly when the group begins to enjoy the gangster high life. Furthermore, the shift from the coming of age story of immigrant adolescents to a world mired in over the top criminal intrigue results in unpredictable changes in mood and pace of the narrative which ultimately culminates in a superfluous plot twist. But these trysts and gimmicks are a forgivable result of the author’s attempt to fit the narrative too firmly into the paradigm of a preconceived theme.

Despite these faults, Londonstani proves to be an original entry into the literary world. Its unique theme, delivery and treatment of the rarely chronicled machismo phenomenon in immigrant communities is much needed for a culture still searching for its soul and those on the outside seeking to understand the immigrant identity crisis. Malkini’s provides a window into this world with a voice that warrants repeated reading. As Jas himself quips; “it’s all about what you say and how you say it.”