IT SEEMS YOU CAN'T WRITE A BOOK about an ethnic community without someone telling you you're not doing it right. Gautam Malkani's first novel, Londonstani (Penguin Press; 352 pages; $24.95), is no exception, but its style is so original and authentic—giving voice to a subculture largely unexplored in fiction—that I find it impossible to fully side with the purists.

Malkani, 30, a Cambridge alum and an editor at The Financial Times, finished his book just after the July 2005 London subway attacks, which were orchestrated by young men very much like the ones who populate Londonstani. Malkani's debut has generated plenty of buzz in the U.K. precisely because it undercuts the terrorism angle—and the prevailing belief that young South Asian men are so radically different from the rest of British society. Instead, he offers us a fresh perspective on what is universal: namely, the angst of South Asian teens, as filtered through an increasingly global hip-hop lens. Londonstani will hit U.S. bookstores in the third week of June.

Drawing from his own experiences, Malkani recreates the West London suburb of Hounslow, a flat, gray tangle of plastic and concrete near Heathrow airport. It's the hub of desi, or South Asian, culture, to which his characters—young Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim men—belong. Or don't belong, as the case may be.

The novel is narrated to us in a rich patois by 19-year-old Jas, a former "coconut"—i.e., white on the inside—who now runs with a small Sikh and Hindu gang in an effort to bolster his masculinity. When we first meet him, Jas has just transformed himself from a studious, stammering goody-two-shoes into a "rudeboy." He's still honing his ability to talk the talk ("I still can't attain the right level a rudeboy finesse. If I could, I wouldn't be using poncey words like attain and finesse") and learning to roll with the rigid grammar of his new homies: the shoes he should wear (Nike Air Force Ones), the celebrities he should follow, the gorgeous Muslim girl he must not date because she's "not one of our own."

British-born children of immigrants, these kids don't share their parents' desire either to assimilate or to remain fully within the strictures of tradition, which leaves them to create, from scratch, their own paths upon which to navigate adult life. In their search for manhood, autonomy, and power, they've cobbled together a culture of their own, a mix of Cockney, Caribbean, Hindi/Urdu/Arabic, old-school Brooklyn, MTV, and machismo: a robust stew that's reflected in their very speech, which Malkani faithfully reproduces. (The dialogue was tested for authenticity on real live Hounslow schoolchildren—and passed.)

These "Indian niggas" listen to DMX in their BMWs while searching for hot babes and easy money, but the money doesn't come easily and the cars really belong to mom and dad. Then there's the ever-present "complicated family-related shit n dat" to deal with, such as a friend's brother whose fiancée's family isn't respectful enough to his parents, plus the general indignities of growing up: One of Jas's friends is sent by his mom to buy laxatives at the drugstore where, of course, the cashier is a girl he has a crush on.

Lack of a place in the system—and of an emotional investment in it—makes the system your enemy; no job, no prospects. In an effort to redeem the boys, a well-meaning teacher introduces them to a mentor, a successful Indian businessman who instead draws them into a series of white-collar crimes. And thus the novel spirals toward its gripping conclusion, complete with a wicked plot twist that will send you back to the beginning for an eager second read—and yeah, it holds up. The clues are all there. (You can easily find it out online, but do yourself a favor and resist.)

Reading the dialect might be a challenge (there are no quotes or italics, and there's some text-messaging abbreviation), but readers shouldn't let this deter them. The linguistic choices are as integral a part of the characterization as the events are. (Malkani's extensive use of the vernacular has earned him comparisons to Irvine Welsh, the Scottish author of the argot-and-heroin-laced Trainspotting.)

Some reviewers have criticized Malkani for relying on generalizations. The boys are screw-ups, the parents and whites are naive and clueless. But the author doesn't treat one group as morally superior to the other, or one dialect (street versus "Hinglish") with more or less respect. Yes, Londonstani has its curry houses and arranged marriages, but they are so little focused on, so little relied upon for plot, that the charge of stereotyping seems unfair. These details are simply part of the real-world landscape. And furthermore, how refreshing it is to see Asianness equated with toughness and masculinity for a change?

Malkani has also been compared to Zadie Smith (with whom he shares an editor at Penguin Press), less for any stylistic similarities and more because of shared subject matter (multi-culti London). It irks to have an author touted by marketers as "the new" anybody, rather than being seen as a unique talent, but I have to wonder if this is really a problem. Why should we embrace every new Dan Brown clone, but limit ourselves to just one Zadie Smith?

To be sure, Malkani is still finding his rhythm. There are prolonged scenes that could have been trimmed, such as the opener, which pounds home the point that racially charged words, like "Paki," are fine for some to use but off-limits to others. Certain metaphors are also used beyond their power to emotionally move (an involved, scatological one for "family drama" comes to mind). But there is much to like here, and we'll be lucky when Malkani gives us more—a story, perhaps, about what happens to rudeboys when they grow up.

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