I thought there was a lot of heart poured into this book from a first time writer with a distinctive voice and perspective. People think that criminals are all one thing or another and they aren't. Who They Was turns a lot of these preconceptions upside down. Gabriel is White with a private school education and a bachelor's degree, he can fluidly debate on philosophy and existentialism. In his free time (as Snoopy no less) he still commits violent acts with his friends.

There is a lot of repetition in this book. Do a 'madness', find someplace to crash, smoke, rinse, repeat. Get yourself to school. Fight with your parents. The memorable points are the isolated stories that spill out between these hazy days. There are characters, and the bonds they form make up for a time a family, even fracturing in the same ways if maybe not for the same reasons. I don't know if I would read a three part trilogy on violence in South Kilburn but this was a story I'm glad was told and I'm happy I decided to read it.

Vivid and immersive, Who They Was is a lightly fictionalised account of the author’s involvement in petty (and not so petty) crime, gangs and drugs while also studying an English Literature degree at a London university. It is ‘the echo, trapped on the page before it fades’ of the denizens of South Kilburn’s brutalist housing estates.

Rendered mainly in street slang and committed to authenticity in its depiction of a subculture, the novel is both gritty and loose, sometimes blistering and other times mundane, and completely unapologetic. Krauze knows his readers aren’t from ‘this world’ and he doesn’t pander. The protagonist (also called Gabriel Krauze aka Snoopz) actively chooses this life, he’s not forced into it through disadvantage, he shows no remorse. He practically brags about his violent exploits. There’s not much to endear Snoopz to the reader and you won’t get some kind of redemptive arc. He doesn’t reject the ‘road life’ so much as gradually grow out of it, as if it might be any youthful pastime, like clubbing.

The purpose seems to simply say: Look. This is how it is. This novel depicts young men turning to crime for all sorts of reasons: to make a name, a reputation, to seek a thrill, to avoid becoming a target, out of disaffection, to say ‘why shouldn’t I take what I want?’ Finding ways to obtain the symbols of status and power they crave, through the limited methods available. This is all presented without judgment, even when characters do become disillusioned, losing faith in the emptiness of the constant grind and need to watch one’s own back.

There are eight debut novels on this year’s Booker longlist, and of those, the three authored by men are all semi-autobiographical to some degree. Who They Was appears to be the most closely based in fact—and this is both its main strength and main weakness. Discomfiting realism is its fuel and lifeblood, but the novel sags with repetitive scenes, where Snoopz and Co sit around, bun a zoot, play video games etc. It ambles, the way life does, without a clear narrative structure and the many characters blur together without much to differentiate them. Some pruning and shaping would have gone a long way to sharpen its impact.

What Who They Was lacks in polish though, it makes up for in energy and a distinctive voice. A highly memorable debut. 4 stars.

Congrats on the Man Booker nomination!

It took a long time for me to get into this novel. It's always the same when I read books written with an accent. I'm talking of books like @thesevenkillings by Marlon James and all of Irvine Welsh' books.

What They Was is written in London South Kilburn slang. As I said, it took some getting used to but it's pretty easy to read once you get the hang of a few of the most common words.

This is such an odd story. The premise itself isn't really. It's about a neighbourhood filled with low income houses and crime. We all know the (often) unrealistic stories told by people who "visit or go undercover". This story, however, is told from Gabriel Krauze's own experience growing up in this neighbourhood. He gives us the ins and outs of his criminal activities. His story is a bit of a peculiar one because while he was selling & taking drugs and killing people, he was studying English Literature at the university.

This contrast feels a bit insane and makes it a pretty interesting read. I gave it this rating because I felt it wasn't fully for me. I enjoyed his story, I even shuddered at it. I didn't find myself taking it all in though, I was in it to finish it.

I'm curious to see if this book makes the Man Booker short list. I'm not one to judge as I've only read two books of the long list so far.

Many thanks to the publisher 4th Estate and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy

I hadn’t heard of this book until a promotional email from NetGalley popped into my in-box. It said great things about the book so I requested it. Who They Was starts off really well. The book was on the way to a 5-star review. There’s something very fresh, original and interesting about it. It’s written in slang which takes a couple of chapters to get used to but the voice is so real, so alive I quickly adjusted. I found myself fascinated by the characters, especially the protagonist, Gabe. How did a young man, seemingly intelligent and studying English Literature at Uni get involved in street gangs and crime? This is a book about the difference between appearance and reality. My enjoyment waned a little when I realised the characters don’t really have a redeeming feature. Still, this is an enjoyable book just not quite what I was hoping for.

Gabriel Krauze’s debut novel has attracted considerable attention since it was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Most of us would probably have not heard of it before the list was announced and even though I have only so far read one other book which has made it onto the list ( C Pam Zhang’s “How Much Of These Fields Is Gold") I would say this is certainly short-list worthy.
It’s definitely not a comfort read. It’s being marketed as an autobiographical novel from an author now in his thirties who lived a life of crime from his teenage years, here in this novel, even whilst studying English Lit at University. Centred around the estates in South Kilburn this is a tale of casual violence, drugs, theft and where wearing an expensive watch is asking for trouble as they get stolen from their original owner and seemingly again and again from the thieves.
To begin with Gabriel, known as Snoopz, fits perfectly into this life and works with those keen to escalate the takings (and the violence). Following a scholarship at a private school his Polish Dad and especially his mother, with naturally high hopes for her offspring, are dumbfounded but supportive. Relationships are casual and with men bonded over drug taking and crime plotting and with women just disturbing as any attachment other than physical only seems to occur when they are apart. University life is important to him but there’s a self-destructive attitude struggling to find prominence over a keen brain.
It’s written in street slang which slows the reader down but gives a vibrant energy to events. I’ve never read anything quite like this from a British perspective. The closest I can think of outside of this is Marlon James’s “A Brief History Of Seven Killings” which won the Man Booker Prize in 2015 although I think that book was more multi-layered than this more straightforward narrative.
I’m not going to get round to many more in the Booker list but I would place it above C Pam Zhang’s novel as I feel this is a more striking, relevant work. I’m not sure what this author would do next but I’m fascinated to find out.
Who They Was was published as an ebook on 3rd August and will be published on 3rd September 2020 in hardback by Harper Collins. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Who They Was is stunning. From the book’s visceral opening scene, the reader is plunged into the heart of London street life where aggression, death, drug dealing, and violent crimes, are a feature of everyday life. It’s not for the feint hearted. The whole experience feels tense and authentic. If I could have, I would have read it in one go. It’s hard to put down.

It’s all written in the vernacular of London’s South Kilburn which gives it a lyricism and authenticity. It must be largely autobiographical. Author Gabriel "Snoopz" Krauze has clearly lived "dat life": mugging people for their designer wallets and watches, dealing drugs, and smoking industrial quantities of Cro, and loving it, whilst, surprisingly, also managing to be a top performing student at Uni whilst studying for his English degree. He completes the degree despite a couple of short spells in prison.

Although Snoopz feelings about his life choices are somewhat ambiguous he gradually becomes drawn back to his Polish family and makes telling observations about himself and his friends and associates who embrace unapologetic and ruthless violence to get what they want. Who They Was is a lot more nuanced than it first appears.

It’s a masterpiece and I hope it gets the audience it deserves.

5/5

Violent, shocking and yet with moments of poetry, this book is Catcher In the Rye for the 21st Century. While you may not find the narrator likeable, he has charisma and the author skilfully makes you want to know more about why he is like he is and what he is going to do next.

This book would have to be based on living this life not just viewing it from afar. Gabriel Krause has now left behind the life he describes with such authenticity and astuteness. He grew up as a white son of Polish immigrants in South Kilburn and other neighbourhoods. He had an early introduction to theft, drug dealing, grievous bodily harm. Stealing expensive watches straight from the owner’s wrists was an area of his expertise. You name it, he and his friends were involved in it. He spent time in gaol, on remand and probation. But buried in that, not unusual, story is the fact that as a boy he went, until he was expelled, on a scholarship to a private school and that he is also a university graduate in English Literature. All that happened in parallel with his life of juvenile crime. His interest in English literature leaves room for humour as the book is written entirely in the neighbourhood dialect. As a reader, you will learn what ‘white yout, bredrins’ yards and brudds’means. ” time is a strange land to walk through “. This book has authenticity and is unique in its portrayal of a lifestyle few readers will have glimpsed. It is an important learning experience- once you solve the dialect!

Longlisted for the Booker Prize, Who They Was is an impressive, powerful debut novel. The author, Gabriel Krauze describes it as ‘estate noir’ literary non-fiction and it is a story of his youth spent dealing drugs, robbery and assault. From the adrenaline-filled opening, a hold up robbery gone wrong to being remanded in custody, processed and taken to Feltham young offenders’ institution, it is a breathless, gritty and authentic read. It depicts life on North West London estates, life of the underprivileged, socially excluded, young people who never stood a chance and people who you only read about as victims of another stabbing or shooting. Nevertheless, it is a life Snoopz (his street name) chose and lived on his own terms.

As a son of Polish immigrants, speaking in a hybrid language made of Jamaican patois, US and London street slang he busts racial stereotypes associated with London gangland violence although he refuses to join any postcode gangs himself. He is also fully committed to getting a good degree in English literature from Queen Mary’s, an avid reader and an active participant in discussions and seminars. He addresses these different sides of himself, “It’s like imagine a gigantic column; you can’t ever see all the way around it in one go, so people only ever get to see the side that’s in their immediate view.”

Who They Was can be a difficult read, there is a lot of violence as well as urge to feel the adrenalin rush, to go one step further. Yet it doesn’t feel gratuitous and Krauze also addresses glorification of violence in films and literature, revenge, morality and beliefs. He does this in often lyrical language and this is what really makes the novel stand out. It is a great, thought provoking read. I really hope it makes the Booker shortlist, it deserves a wide audience.

My thanks to Fourth Estate and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Who They Was.

I am finding it difficult to know how I feel about this book. I found it hard to get to grips with the level of violence and lack of remorse.
This definitely opened my eyes to a part of London that I never see and rarely even hear about on the news - it’s gripping, fascinating and has one of the most adrenaline packed beginnings to a book that I’ve ever read. The rawness of the dialect gives it a realness and grit that really helps transport you into their lives, and I love the juxtaposition of this casual, hard edged language with the wisdom that Krauze is sharing. Wisdom like “Morality is a luxury that man can’t afford” definitely made me feel my own privilege, and there were lots of gems like this throughout the book that showed a real depth to Krauze, and a real understanding of the darker side of London.
Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with the way this glorified violence, I am also aware after reading this that for some communities that is a way of life and we’re lucky to not be surrounded by it every day, so I’m glad to see this kind of story told and long listed for the Booker prize.

Whilst i can’t say i have any experience of the gang culture depicted in this exciting debut, it feels thrillingly and appallingly real. Written from the first person perspective of Snoopz, a English Literature student born of Polish immigrants who is fully signed up to the gang culture of drugs, violence and casual sex when not arguing about Nietzsche or Shakespeare in seminars. This diametrically opposed identity is mirrored in the language of soaring poeticism and brutal vernacular - the latter taking some time to adapt to (some people won’t and others won’t want to, and to be honest i can understand that). Most of the slang is easy enough to pick up through context and repetition, and the rest can be unearthed on urban dictionary.

I picked this up due to the Booker longlisting - which i think is fantastic for getting Krause the exposure he deserves for this (quasi?)-autobiographical novel. My gut says it’s not the winner, but it deserves an audience.

I have to say I really liked the synopsis for this book. I looked forward to reading the point of view, fictional or not, of characters from a section of society I see as badly represented. I expected the use of some terms and phrases I wouldn’t understand but this is almost unfathomable.
A shame because the story needs telling. We need to understand, but at least tell us in a language we can understand.

Fiction or non-fiction this is Snoopz's story. This is the name that Gabriel uses in his life on the streets and in the gangs in London. That life consists of crime, drugs, friends, girls and, slightly surprisingly, his time at uni doing his English degree. It's violent and at times unpleasant - knives are normal, guns sometimes. The police, courts and prison make appearances. It is not a "pretty" story, it's visceral and edgy.

As an old person it took me a little while to get into the language being used here. There were a lot of words I didn't know (or in some cases didn't make sense in the way they were used). "Food" means something very different to me than it does to Snoopz and the gangs culture of South Kilburn! This is so far from the world that is usual to me... If you do find you can get the language you are in for an interesting journey.

I guess I'm conflicted here. This story effectively glorifies violence, crime and drugs - "things" are simply something to be taken from others whatever it costs. It certainly shows young men seeing women as objects. So far so bad... However the writing and the power of the stories are remarkable. The tension between rivals - gangs or people - is tangible and quite scary. The sheer drive to rob, use women, get possessions and in this case to get an English degree come over so strongly. Living - and the obvious but usually ignored possibility of dying - makes for something that is very vivid.

For me the star aspect of this is the writing. Once you get into it (if you can) it is stunning for me. Most of it has a real lyricism. Parts of it are wonderfully poetic. I found myself wishing I had thought of some of the lines in it. It makes for a convincing but troubling read. I'm left with the feeling that Gabriel was probably a good boy - Snoopz is definitely not. However, good or bad, it comes over as something very real indeed. I certainly have no regrets about reading this.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020

Wow, this is a pure adrenaline shot of urban violence and brutality wrapped up and articulated in street language which is fresh and vibrant and sometimes incomprehensible but hell, it just carries us along in its flow anyway.

The book opens as it means to go on with a horrific mugging that left me breathless - and horribly implicated in the event... because however much we abhor the fate of the female victim and her family, we're also caught up in the excitement of the narrator whose writing puts us *there* alongside him. And it's this teetering ambiguity which makes this such a challenging read and one worthy of its place on the Booker longlist - this isn't about 'mindless' violence; it's about violence perpetrated by a boy-man who is intelligent and articulate and who played the piano and went to private school (at least, till he was expelled), who reads Nietzsche and Shakespeare and who works hard because he wants to get a first in his English BA and nearly does...

Krauze hits the stereotypes of gang violence head-on: in terms of racial profiling (he's white, his parents are Polish immigrants), in terms of education and ambition. He shows how the overwhelming concern with 'saving face' is little different from that of many men, and that the pursuit of status symbols, especially high-brand watches (Tag Hauer, Cartier) and designer clothes parallels that of wider London society. Indeed, one of the scary things about this book is how close this terrifying underworld is to the streets we know and on which we, mostly, feel safe to go about our usual business.

This does make important points about social policies and policing (how the murder of Chicken on a run-down Kilburn estate never even makes the papers let alone warrants a police investigation, for example) but none of that is really news, however much it needs saying. What makes this book is its literary status: it's harsh and scary and electrifying and pulsing with life and energy. The dynamism of the prose sweeps us up and keeps us there, alongside Snoopz: '... and I grab Stefano's neck from behind, pull out my shank, flicking the blade out in the same moment and just jook jook jook jook jook five times in his back and I never feel the knife go in but I see it slip right in, so smooth'

And in between all the drug-selling, the fights, the crime and the violence, our narrator struggles with the usual adolescent problems: fights with his parents, sex and expectations, a fluctuating sense of identity as he switches from street warrior to A-grade university student. His contributions to seminars are startling: he knows more about the internecine violence of 'Romeo and Juliet' that I ever will, and I was dying to read his dissertation on murder in 'Hamlet'. But these insights never wipe out the knowledge that he's carrying not just a knife but a gun even on campus.

There's an authenticity about this whole book, its story, its language which I loved and Krauze doesn't fall into easily tropes of moral regret or redemption at the end. It reminded me, in some ways, of Kerouac's 'On the Road' with its casual misogyny, its easy criminality, its counter-cultural stance, its striving for a language in which to articulate an experience that has no mainstream social and cultural purchase - though the 21st century makes its presence felt in the extremity of the violence. Krauze depicts a terrifying world but he does it with intelligence, literary sensitivity, and a rare and controversial exhilaration.

A stunner of a debut and a writer to watch.

A very fast paced story, we are brought into the underbelly of a place that is tough.
We see a community that runs a world of its own, where no one can touch them no police no law.
It is one of friendships and bonds that really is life or death, it brings in the world of grime, rap, but the scar face that also runs parallel in certain places.
A fab fab story.

Cult classic status assured -- a one-of-a-kind, brilliantly conceived, fully realized, deeply affecting and entirely convincing first-person slang-swinging barnstormer. Demands and deserves a Booker shortlist spot, at the very least.

Gabriel Krauze's Who They Was opens with the first person narrator, also called Gabriel Krauze, together with his friend Gotti, violently assaulting a woman, on her doorstep, in front of her son, to steal her Rolex and diamond ring.

<i>And we’re still tryna tear the watch off and suddenly Gotti turns round and bangs the woman’s son in the face onetime and the boy drops and Gotti slams the door shut and we’re alone with her again. And I clock she’s got a big diamond ring on her wedding finger and I try to pull it off but it’s not moving, the skin all bunches up and it hurts her and I can’t twist it off because she has a wedding band on the same finger in front of the diamond ring, basically blocking it. So I snap her finger back, it folds straight over so the tip touches her wrist in one go and it’s strange because I always thought that if you break someone’s finger you’ll actually feel the bones break, hear it even, but I don’t feel anything at all, it’s like folding paper, as if the finger was naturally supposed to bend back like that and she’s screaming to me take it just take it.</i>

The narrator then tells us:

<i>And this is the thing, there’s no remorse, I don’t feel any remorse, Gotti doesn’t feel any remorse, and it’s not because we’re evil or any basic moral bullshit like that. The thing is I don’t actually feel anything about it at all. She defo doesn’t spend a second thinking about individuals like me, about what it’s like to be me. She doesn’t care about me and I don’t care about her.</i>

The novel puts us in the mind of an amoral (although I actually think evil would be justified) protagonist, perhaps an estate version of American Psycho, which makes for an interesting character study but a very unpleasant read and a not terribly literary one.

The narrator comes from a white Polish background, and a seemingly relatively respectable family, but has consciously opted into a life of drugs, crime and gang violence on the Soutk Kilburn estate, although one that he lives in parallel with studying English at university.

The bulk of rest of the book consists of repetitive chapters which each run along following lines.

- open with literary quote (Nietzche a favourite);
- go to university lectures on literature, mainly to eye up the female students, but intervening to make a remark that shows how much cleverer he is than the other students;
- sleep with one of the female student, who is amazed at how well endowed he is;
- go back to the estate and stab someone;
- take some drugs;
- sleep with another girl, who is also extremely impressed by my virility;
- violently assault a law-abiding woman in the street to steal her watch/ring, ideally breaking some bones;
- justify above by reference to Nietzche/Machivelli etc
- rinse and repeat, almost to the point of self-satire.

One of the book's key themes seems to be how little this world is understood by most of those who live in London, and that (somehow) this justifies violently intruding on their lives:

<i>It’s mad how you can live in a city and never see any of this. Or you just see faint smudges of it every now and again around the edges of your existence but even then you don’t fully believe in it, because even though we live in the same city, where I’m from and where you’re from could be two totally separate worlds. Like say you hear about a shooting on a street you walk down every day on your way to work; it’s a shocking one-off occasion, a rarity, something to talk about, and every single violent incident that you hear of or read about becomes a one-off, or at least a surprise or a shock. But to others these incidents are just the punctuation of their reality.</i>

As a fictional character study this could be, as mentioned, be perhaps an interesting, if very unpleasant read. But this actually seems closer to memoir than fiction, the author telling us in the afterword "everything in this book, in this story, was experienced in one way or another - otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell it", and the biography on the Booker website explaining the author "was – personally - heavily involved in gangs, drugs, guns, stabbing and robbery - all while completing an English degree at Queen Mary’s University".

Which leaves me with both an unpleasant feeling reading his work, but also exacerbates one of the book's biggest weaknesses, in that it makes no real attempt to explain why the protagonist made the bad choices that he did - in the afterword the author can only explain <i>this is the life I chose. Maybe I was looking for a sense of family and identity that I couldn’t find at home.</i>

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

But I must admit to suffering a complete empathy failure with this one - for more generous reviews read those by my brother Gumble's Yard (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3465513163) and my GR friend Neil (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3253978972) - but for me a book I found extremely unpleasant, one that made my angry, and not a book I feel the Booker judges should have recognised.

1.5 stars rounded up to 2 as clearly others have seen something else in this book.

Who They Was, currently one of the Booker Longlist nominees for 2020, is one of the most perfect amalgamations of gritty subject matter and affecting prose I have read in a long time. This is autobiographical literary fiction in which Gabriel "Snoopz" Krauze reflects on his past as part of London's gang culture and tells a raw and powerfully moving tale of the rampant adversity, abject poverty and sheer desperation that often drives people into the arms of organised crime. Everything that happens throughout the story was experienced by Krauze in real life and begins in 2007 in his native South Kilburn. It is a mind-blowing and profoundly authentic read and one I had to devour long into the night to see exactly how things would turn out. Many people believe those involved in the innumerable crimes he fearlessly admits to, having served time for a lot of them in notorious Feltham prison, and moving in the circles in which he moved to be ”societies wasters”; those who refuse to work 9-5 jobs or too lazy to study but Krauze was reading English Literature at Queen Mary University in London rebutting this assumption completely.

Being heavily involved in gang life, drugs, guns, stabbings and robbery does not exclude you from intellectual pursuits but people like to demonise and dehumanise those involved in these activities purely because people often fear what they don't understand and that goes for both other humans as well as alternative, or criminal, lifestyles. But people should show compassion and at least try to understand because unless that happens, nothing will change. Don't get me wrong, the incidents described throughout the book are harrowing, disturbing and clearly very wrong and what comes across quite strongly is that Gabriel was seemingly more inclined to jump right in and take things a step further than many of his cohorts perhaps would have, yet he refused to get caught up in gang warfare and postcode rivalries/turf wars. Authority figures seem to have an issue believing that he is a white male despite hailing from Poland and being exactly that. In their minds, it appears that all gangsters must be people of colour, which, of course, is ludicrous; it would be more helpful if people could perceive this as the class crisis that it is rather than resorting to stooping to racial and criminal profiling and blatant stereotyping.

I can certainly see this being a polarising and divisive book and some may criticise it for glamorising violent crime, however, regarding a story of this nature you either go all out and write about everything, rather than merely select parts, or you just don't bother at all. Towards the end of it, we see a redemptive arc come into play whereby friends encourage him to leave that life behind for good before he ends up incarcerated for life or worse. This is a wholly unique read in that there are many sentences punctuated with London slang and I found the deeper into it you ventured the more the unadulterated honesty on Krauze's part made him relatable, despite the fact that he and I have led vastly different lives. Shifting between poetic beauty and London slang starts off a little jarring but as you become accustomed to it you realise it perfectly illustrates the juxtaposition between the two completely separate ”lives" he's living. There's no doubt in my mind that the author is extremely talented, and I am overjoyed that he left the dangerous lifestyle behind him to write. Unforgettable from start to finish. Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC.

Eyebrows were raised at the number of debuts on this year's Booker longlist, but Gabriel Krauze's scintillating Who They Was is surely a worthy contender. It has been referred to as 'literary non-fiction', as the shocking events it describes were all experienced by the author in his younger days.

Krauze grew up in a disadvantaged part of London and was attracted to a life of crime from an early age. The gangs that ruled South Kilburn, along with the power and money involved in their illegal enterprises seemed like a logical path to success. He went by the name Snoopz and took part in various shady dealings, from drug-dealing to robbery and worse. His family were dismayed at the life he chose to lead but their pleading fell on deaf ears. However, Krauze possessed an intelligence and a will to better himself that was lacking in his peers. He studied English at university, while he was living the gang life, and you read on hoping that this is his way out.

The story is told in London slang, and though it's a little jarring at first, it settles into an easy rhythm. It also adds to the authenticity of Krauze's account. You begin to wonder how somebody with his intellect could have been lured into such a dangerous existence, but he explains its thrills quite eloquently in his own way:
"I’m tapping the zoot to pack the weed and baccy down tap tap tap so it’s nice and tight, and it hits me how I don’t want an easy and boring life. I want to run from the law and feel my heartbeat making me sick. I want to fuck gyal like it could be my last night on Earth. I want to see fear in people’s eyes and eat my own fear. I want to live dangerously, on the edge of existence."

"Now that I’ve committed to it there’s no backing out. Better to take risks, better to plunge into the fire and feel alive, if only for a moment, than not to have really lived at all. Some people spend their lives dying. Fuck dat."

It's quite a violent story and Snoopz commits many horrific, despicable acts. But in a strange way, I rooted for him. He is better than this, and he has the means to escape if he can only realise it. There are moments of poetic insight in his account that offer a glimpse at his true potential:
"Warm yellow lights keep secrets behind curtained windows in the three-storey blocks that sit in the precinct. Street lights fight with shadows and lose. Nightfall. In the distance, rectangles of yellow float in unshakeable loneliness: windows in the concrete towers of South Kilburn."

And though he acts like a tough man on the street, fleeting moments show that there is a heart underneath that hardened exterior:
"As I leave the flat I start crying silently, tightening up my face with my eyes all blurry, but I can’t work out if I’m sad or if it’s just the way I’d clocked my father’s love for me has no limits, even while it pushes against something terrible."

At times I felt ashamed for how exciting I found the descriptions of the crimes that Snoopz commits. But I don't think that the book glorifies violence. It describes how a person can become addicted to this lifestyle; how easy it is to fall in with a gang when you grow up with it on your doorstep. And it sadly reveals the consequences of gang life - Krauze is one of the lucky few who got out. I was hugely impressed by Who They Was - it is a powerful, startling story, showing me a life that I had only caught a glimpse of in statistics and newspaper reports.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
In this semi-autobiographical novel, debut author Gabriel Krauze works with his own experiences coming of age as the son of Polish immigrants in the brutalist public housing estate of South Kilburn, London, and making money as a drug dealer and criminal - while also completing a degree in English literature. Our protagonist - also named Gabriel, but called Snoopz by his peers - is terrified of the idea of having to work a nine-to-five job and uses every chance to point out how easy it was for him to get the degree despite his poor work ethic because, hey, he is so smart - and it's ironic that at the same time, the book makes his life as a criminal living on the edge in gritty London seem not only bleak, but most of all dull. There are robberies and gangs and drugs and sex, there is love and friendship and betrayal and alliances - and most of all, it's dull. How the hell is that possible?

It is of course commendable that Krauze paints an authentic picture of South Kilburn that illuminates the difficult situation many people who live there are in - many of the residents are immigrants without many resources who live in a dangerous environment, as the concrete blocks have been plagued by crime, drugs, shootings, stabbings and gang wars (Krauze refers to some real incidents in the novel). By centering on these issues, Krauze points out many social problems he himself was a part of, and he employs the specific dialect spoken in the milieu. Unfortunately though, his text is highly descriptive and sometimes even feels enumerative, like a set of very common bleak scenes rhythmically interrupted by people smoking cigarettes (I swear, the repetition of the "I have to smoke a cigarette now" motif was driving me up the walls - not because I mind my fictional characters smoking, but because it is in there ca. 63384353 times).

And there are of course great novels about the relentless side of postmodern London, like GRM: Brainfuck and - the obvious comparison - In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne's epic masterpiece set in the decrepit housing blocks in the north of the city. Gunaratne was nominated for the Booker 2018 and went on grabbing the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Jhalak Prize instead. His book is full of music and lyrical perfection, he conveys emotional intensity and offers a captivating plot - not one dull second here. Even though Krauze is marketed as an authentic voice (and with the made-up label of "estate noir" which, let's face it, is a very clumsy attempt at trying to frame a text), it's Gunaratne's story that finds the words to open up these realities to readers.

This is not a bad book at all, but it's also not a great book - it's just not enough to say "I've been there, I've seen it", an author also has to be able to turn the descriptions of reality into art. And while I have to admit that going up against Gunaratne is a tough call, it's also true that Krauze's book can't compete with this stellar entry from 2018. But would I read whatever Krauze comes up with next? Definitely.