Once a week, Black Balloon's editorial assistant Kate Gavino chooses the best Q and the best A from one of New York's literary in-store events. Here, Kate draws from Zadie Smith's reading at Greenlight Bookstore on September 28.

What made you want to write about your hometown?

Zadie Smith: What drew me back to [Hackney] is fiction. I love to think about it and write about it. Some of the changes I fought to put in the book since there's been a great deal of gentrification, which in Brooklyn you're perfectly familiar with. It's always most painful for long-term locals, and some of it I feel is justified. But some of it is also irrational. You're really angry about the cupcake shop even though what was there before was a wasteland with a dead body on it. That's the way it is. I do find myself when I'm [in Hackney] complaining a lot, which I probably shouldn't do.

To me, half my area is very homogenous. It's just the kind of thing that mainstream media doesn't complain about. For a lot of people, when your neighborhood becomes entirely white and entirely upper middle class, it is a different kind of invasion – stressful to the people who live there. Most stressful is the assumption on the part of that community that you are grateful that they come. That's the difference because most immigrants don't assume that you'd be grateful that they've appeared in masses. But that particular contingent thinks they're a great blessing to wherever they land.

Image courtesy the author

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Reviews of Zadie Smith's fourth novel, NW, have been, to put it kindly, mixed. Much of the criticism seems to stem from Smith's “indecision” throughout the novel: it's divided into four very different sections, all of which suck the reader in before tearing them away. As someone who rather liked the book, I found that each section read best in a specific place. Likewise, the wrong reading location had profound effects on my enjoyment of the book, and I had to stake out a better reading territory. Perhaps if Michiko Kakutani had taken the same guess-and-check approach, she wouldn't have called NW "a much smaller, more meager book than White Teeth.”

Below, I share some of the best places to read each section (no spoilers, I promise). After all, if environment affects how we learn to read, why shouldn’t it also affect how we read?

Section 1: Visitation
Ideal Reading Location: Home, on a nice day
The novel opens in the quiet, beautiful apartment of Leah Halwell, one of the book's duller characters. Excitement happens once in a while, but for the most part, you may find yourself getting up for another drink or flipping open your laptop to scan your newsfeed once in a while. Any time I tried to read the slow, thoughtful pacing of this section on the subway, I was distracted by my seatmate's gum chewing or the conductor's garbled announcements. A casual, serene location, much like Leah's apartment, was the best place to acclimate myself to Smith's intricate, cherry-picked prose.

Section 2: Guest
IRL: The subway
The action starts chugging along with the introduction of Felix, a drug-dealer-cum-mechanic who's ready to settle down. Reading this section in a cramped subway car on my way to work proved to be the ideal distraction during my commute. Smith seems to hit her stride here, throwing in characters that maintain a fairytale shimmer despite their brutally realistic settings. It's a harsh awakening from the first section of the book, and it goes hand-in-hand with shrieking brakes and whooshing doors.

Section 3: Host
IRL: Lunch
Reading over lunch is always a struggle: turn the page, take a bite, read a paragraph while chewing, don't spill, repeat. It helps that this section is chopped into manageable, diary-like entries. Again, this section is a big change from the last one, and the biggest departure from what I consider the tried and true Zadie Smith voice. She even went the Tao Lin route and threw in some gchat transcripts, which for many, will take some time to digest.

Section 4: Crossing/Visitation
IRL: Park bench
After a somewhat bizarre revelation that occurs in the previous section, you'll need to sit down and focus. Your neighborhood park may help you feel closer to the community Smith works so hard to examine in the novel. Grab a seat away from the dog park and playground; no time for distractions now. NW may be a chore to get through, but in the end, the characters keep drawing you back. If you've read any of Smith's other books, you know she likes to give her characters their comeuppances. The book's finale is pretty messy, but after all this time you've spent with it, you'll be eager to see what becomes of everyone — of these vivid characters who have become your neighbors, lunchmates, and groggy fellow passengers.

Image: ew.com

Whenever I hear about The Great Gatsby, my mind shuttles to a passage of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, one of my oft-read favorite novels. Like me, the protagonist Toru is a serious rereader: “This is my third time through [Gatsby], and every time I find something new that I like even more than the last time.” So it's not too surprising that The Millions (and a linkedGuardian article) posits The Great Gatsby as the most “rereadable” fiction. Since my rereading habits tend to change with the seasons, let me offer a few recommendations for winter nesting, summer tanning, astral projecting, and more.

• Cocooning for the winter: I plowed through Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot and Crime and Punishment in a chair next my studio's radiator, where the hiss and clatter of pipes covered whatever music was playing the background. To me, they're the most cold-weather appropriate of this Russian's enveloping oeuvre.

• Beach jaunts: Thomas Mann's Death in Venice radiates with dry summer heat and soothing Adriatic air, and its novella length is perfect for beach reading (tack on 45 minutes for the Nassau County train ride). Dostoevsky's short novel The Gambler is another warm-weather favorite—and I'm admittedly smitten with Mlle Blanche de Cominges.

• Emotional inspiration, in brief: Anton Chekhov's short stories never fail me. “The Huntsman,” “Anyuta,” and “The Black Monk” are major tearjerkers—and with Chekhov's unbelievable gift for brevity, “The Huntsman” achieves this over barely four pages. I share these with girls to show them that I am a sensitive dude.

• Emotional inspiration, long read: Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man...and yes, I love White Teeth as well. I met Smith at a reading back when The Autograph Man debuted (she read the prologue, another significant tearjerker), and I've returned to her idiosyncratic second novel ever since.

• Far East escapism: Haruki Murakami's pop psychedelic The Windup Bird Chronicle. I've written about this before for Black Balloon, and it's my go-to for getting “away." Plus, Dance, Dance, Dance is one heady trip (psychic teenagers and talking sheep, anyone?).

• Even farther (like another universe) escapism: Douglas Adams' The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or as the subheading reads: “five novels in one outrageous volume.” I tend to tucker out at So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, but it's still a stellar ticket outta here. Towel not included.

For my fellow rereaders, I close with a helpful tip. See, my Manhattan studio couldn't accommodate a proper library, but my reading habits demanded one. To combat my finite space, I read and re-read certain novels until I'd exhausted them, and then I shipped them back to my parents so I could buy more.

But the Murakamis, the Russians, Zadie...those I made room for. Who needs a bathtub, anyway?

Image courtesy the author