SOURCE: “Into the Blue,” in The Spectator, May 10, 1997, pp. 36-7.

In the following review, Page offers a generally positive assessment of Love in a Blue Time, but finds shortcomings in Kureishi's tendency toward caricature.

As any closet romantic will tell you, falling out of love can be an even grander experience than falling into it, as well as, of course, a more permanent one. The revelations of disenchantment and ways of surviving it form the basis of Hanif Kureishi’s latest outing—a collection of bawdy and often indulgent short stories. The opening tale, ‘In the Blue’, sets the tone with the betrayals of a 22-year-old, by now perfunctory, friendship between Roy and Jimmy. Once soul-mates in their adolescence, they have drifted diametrically under Thatcherism, selling out and dropping out, respectively. From the treacheries of friendship, the book goes on to cover a wide spectrum of infidelity and...