THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA by Hanif...

THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA by Hanif Kureishi (Penguin: $8.95). In this darkly comic novel, the author of the Oscar-nominated screenplay for “My Beautiful Launderette” continues his exploration of life among the disenfranchised Asian immigrants in London. Karim Amir, the moodily bisexual narrator, observes the clashes between generations and cultures with a mixture of amusement and horror. His father, a minor civil servant, becomes a fashionable guru to a group of middle-class Britons--and inconveniently falls in love with his most vociferous disciple, the sensual and ambitious Eva. His father’s best friend, “Uncle” Anwar, desperately tries to preserve the crumbling traditions of his native land and compels his Communist daughter to marry the man chosen by relatives in India. (She eventually complies, but Anwar’s apparent victory quickly devolves into an absurd defeat.) After grappling with racial prejudice and an utter lack of ambition, Kamir stumbles into a successful career as an actor, and discovers the posher but equally artificial world of the arts. “Suburbia” offers a devastating portrait of underclass life in the London of Margaret Thatcher and Johnny Rotten.