SOURCE: “Idleness en Masse,” in Times Literary Supplement, June 2–8, 1989, p. 619.

In the following excerpt, Ford offers an unfavorable assessment of The Colour of Memory.

Everyone hates having the toad work squat on their lives, but doing nothing all day, every day, can be even worse. Both The Colour of Memory and When the Monster Dies [by Kate Pullinger] describe the aimless “alternative” lives of South London scroungers, in squats or on the dole, and doggedly chronicle the pleasures and vexations of drifting, purposeless days.

The Colour of Memory is the more successful. It is set in Brixton and celebrates in unsparing detail the good times shared by the narrator with his gang of arty South London friends; these include Steranko the painter, who is compared favourably with de Chirico, Freddie, a would-be novelist, Foomie and Belinda who briefly form a rap group, and so on. The novel is...