Though Archie is the book's protagonist, Smith takes us between characters frequently, particularly in the earliest chapters, and again as the book tumbles relentlessly towards its ending. At various times, we see the world not only through Archie's eyes, but through those of Samad and his wife, Alsana, through the eyes of Archie's daughter, Irie, and those of his friend's children. In a typical passage, Smith brings us inside Archie's wife Clara, so we can see Archie as she does, a few months after the wedding:

No white knight, then, this Archibald Jones. No aims, no hopes, no ambitions. A man whose greatest pleasures were English breakfasts and DIY. A dull man. An old man. And yet...good. He was a good man.

Or from Alsana:

Black people are often friendly, thought Alsana, smiling at Clara, and adding this fact subconsciously to the short "pro" side of the pro and con list she had on the black girl. From every minority she disliked, Alsana liked to single out one specimen for spiritual forgiveness.

These are flawed characters, characters who reminded me now and again of Jonathan Franzen's dysfunctional Corrections family. Smith's characters are ripe with deadly sins and defined by pride and envy. Smith never goes quite as far as Franzen; there is a constant awareness that these personal flaws are funhouse mirrors to society's flaws.

In the Corrections, we cringe at the characters self-absorbed lives; here we empathize. The characters feel their lives have taken on an inevitable form and, as a reader, you can see why they have come to that conclusion.

Smith's writing moves along at a pace befitting modern society. There are religious references, literary references, pop culture references (including a 42 or two — Smith's humour often brings to mind Douglas Adams or Neil Gaiman), references to historic events and the movement from thought-to-thought is often Sesame Street quick.

Frequently, Smith starts with an idea that seems to lead to a comfortable cliché, only to arrive at something completely different. Archie and Samad bond over fixing a tank, and we expect to learn about respect and culture, only to learn instead about Archie:

Samad discreetly coughed as Archie's little finger strayed toward the correct item. It was awkward, an Indian telling an Englishman what to do—but somehow the quietness of it, the manliness of it, got them over it. It was during this time that Archie learned the true power of do-it-yourself, how it uses a hammer and nails to replace nouns and adjectives, how it allows men to communicate. A lesson he kept with him all his life.

In one paragraph, Smith explains Samad and Archie's relationship and cements Archie's role as an emotionally inarticulate English everyman. Archie tries, but he is baffled by this new world order, where "there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English." There is a continuous back and forth between Samad and Archie, representative of the back and forth of the cultures.