I whipped through this in one sitting, unable to put it down. It is the tale of a young, penniless Sikh on the make, socially, sexually and financially. Rude and very un-PC, it’s an astute take on modern Britain, clever, satirical, surprising and very good indeed. I loved it.
Bhupinder 'Puppy' Singh Johal – handsome, rakish and spiritually disenfranchised – has left behind the immigrant neighbourhood of Southall to mix with the elite of metropolitan London society. When sloaney rich-girl Sophie, falls for him, he grabs the chance to escape his past and pursue the woman of his dreams, the voluptuous sophisticate Sarupa, who happens to be engaged to Sophie’s cousin. Using whatever and whoever he can, Puppy explores the grit and glamour of a city seething with the possibilities and politics of money, race and sex: an incendiary cocktail that explodes, changing him and those closest to him forever...
Set in the long hot summer of 2002, Tourism is a filthy, unflinching and politically incorrect take on modern Britain.
'Tolerant, funny and real, [the narrator] ducks and dives hedonistically, lazily, gunning out x-ray observations about masculinity, models and 'the magic of miscegenation' that would have had Oscar Wilde licking his lips' Vogue
The best debut novel I have ever read - monumentally sexy, seriously shocking and touched with genius' Julie Burchill
Author
About Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal
Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal is thirty-one years old. A freelance journalist, he writes for The Times, the Guardian and the Evening Standard. He is married to the journalist Liz Jones, and currently lives in Hackney. He studied English and American literature at Nottingham University before starting a career in broadcasting with the BBC, which he left in 2000 to become a full-time writer.