Characters such as Miriam, folk singing taxi driver Bushy and the deinzens of The Cross Keys, a down at heel pub-cum-strip joint Jamal frequents for reasons never adequately explained seem rather cartoonish.The novel is also skewed in that, while employing many aspects of life that I suspect will be familiar to British Asians, such as Jamal and Miriam's visit to their father in Pakistan, Jamal's r