for himself. Unfortunately, each parent independently has the same idea of presenting the drawing to Speedy, an old friend of theirs who runs a hamburger restaurant full of 1970s memorabilia—a place occasionally even visited by Lester Jones himself—so that the picture can be exhibited there: '[...] It's me, me, me, with you lot. People don't know, or won't say, how much they hate their children.' He was hardly listening. She [Christine] wanted him to be a lawyer. He was, he reckoned, already sufficiently engaged with the Law. In the next few days his mother would have her forged copy of Lester's picture framed and presented to Speedy, who would have been presented with two forged copies of the same picture by two members of the same family. Gabriel's prison sentence, already long enough, would surely be increased. [...] (Chapter 10) At Speedy's hamburger joint, a chance meeting with film producer Jake Ambler (also fictitious) sets off Rex's teaching career. Looking for someone to give his spoiled teenage son private guitar lessons, Jake offers the job to Rex who, encouraged by Gabriel to do something useful and earn some money at the same time, reluctantly agrees ("We're not so desperate that we're going to start working for a living") and eventually, after word of mouth has spread and he is teaching not just one but several kids, quite enjoys being seen as an authority on music by his pupils. Before the truth about Lester Jones's drawing is found out, Gabriel strikes a deal with Speedy, regains possession of the picture in exchange for a painting of Speedy he has to paint himself, and destroys the two copies. Seeing her ex-partner's reformation, Christine reconsiders her decision to spend the rest of her life without him and does not mind the end of her affair with George, a young artist and a regular at the bar where she is waitressing. At the end of the novel Rex and Christine get married, and in the following summer, under Jake Ambler's supervision, Gabriel starts shooting his first film. As opposed to other protagonists created by Kureishi, Rex, Christine and Gabriel are white. John Crace, in The Guardian, summarised the story thus: "Co-dependent 15-year-old Buddha of Suburbia sorts out his parents' predictably dreary middle-aged rock'n'roll existential angst before embarking on his own". Footnotes External links David Jays: "Never Trust a Man in Platform Heels" (review), The