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BOOKS: THE GENERATION GAME
Independent, The (London), Apr 22, 2001 by John Walsh
Sample fact According to Evans, there exists an emotion known by the Gururumba people of New Guinea as the state of "being a wild pig".
Sample chapter title "Why Spock could never evolve."
The critics "One of the best of the new wave of science writers... has written a masterly survey - lean, confident and packed with up- to-the- minute information. It will enlighten and surprise" (Nicholas Humphrey, author of A History of the Mind).
Prospects Plenty of time to position himself alongside Adam Phillips or Steven Pinker.
Zadie Smith
AGE 25
Brit-lit queen
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Story so far If you don't know by now about Smith's hair, her schooling in Willesden and her ex-boyfriends, then we're afraid no amount of bluffing is going to help.
Sub-plot White Teeth wasn't bad, either.
Sample interview line "I was 21 when I wrote White Teeth. What difference does it make what I think?"
Sample book line "Archie Jones attempted suicide because his wife Ophelia, a violet-eyed Italian with a faint moustache, had recently divorced him."
The critics "Smith has stories to tell and, in the tradition of Peter Carey and Salman Rushdie, she just gets on with them; the dialogue is pitch perfect, the comedy neat and underplayed" (Daily Telegraph); "Fluent, observant, deeply amiable" (Sunday Times); "Audaciously assured" (Observer).
Prospects The question "Can she cope with the expectations for her second book?" is already a cliche; there's no reason why not.
Maggie
O'Farrell
AGE 29
Whydunnit writer
Story so far It sounds like one of those logic puzzles involving dwarfs, ice-cubes and locked rooms: a woman gets a train to visit her sisters in Scotland, sees something she doesn't like at Edinburgh's Waverley station, goes home and throws herself under a car. Why? After You'd Gone, the first novel from Maggie O'Farrell (who also writes for this newspaper), develops into an engrossing study of loss and family ties, delivered with the page-turning pace of a thriller.
Sub-plot Her shortest job (two days) was as a cycle courier in Hong Kong with no spoken or written Cantonese.
Sample line "The day she would try to kill herself, she realised winter was coming."
The critics "Textures the plot brilliantly, wrapping the bare bones in flesh" (Times); "A memorable debut" Shena Mackay (Daily Telegraph).
Prospects Her second novel, My Lover's Lover, is due out next spring.
Clare Pollard
AGE 21
Pop-lyrical poet
Story so far Bolton-reared Cambridge student, whose first poetry collection, the snappily titled The Heavy Petting Zoo, was published at 19. Inspired by music as much as poetry: "Pop music is the first, last and only port of call for my generation. Why scour your library for dusty paperbacks when you've got Radiohead and Nirvana?" she has said.
Sub-plot Pollard was briefly poet in residence at the Toni & Guy hair salon in Durham.
Sample verses "It's your best friend's 16th birthday party. / That's eight hamsters' lives and yet she still wasn't wise enough / to realise it would turn into a heavy petting zoo."
