Something to Tell You - Hanif Kureishi

In the early 1980s Hanif Kureishi emerged as one of the most compelling new voices in film and fiction. His movies "My Beautiful Laundrette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid" and his novel "The Buddha of Suburbia" captivated audiences and inspired other artists.

In "Something to Tell You," he travels back to those days of hedonism, activism and glorious creativity. And he explores the lives of that generation now, in a very different London. Jamal is middle-aged, though reluctant to admit it. He has an ex-wife, a son he adores, a thriving career as a psychoanalyst and vast reserves of unsatisfied desire.

"Secrets are my currency," he says. "I deal in them for a living." And he has some of his own. He is haunted by Ajita, his first love, whom he hasn't seen in decades, and by an act of violence he has never confessed. With great empathy and agility, Kureishi has created an array of unforgettable characters - a hilarious and eccentric theater director, a covey of charming and defiant outcasts and an ebullient sister who thrives on the fringe. All wrestle with their own limits as human beings; all are plagued by the past until they find it within themselves to forgive.

Comic, wise and unfailingly tender, "Something to Tell You" is Kureishi's best work to date, brilliant and exhilarating.