"A Small Fortune," by Rosie Dastgir Illustration by Charlotte Trounce While visiting the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, two Pakistani immigrants happen upon the Meridian Line. Harris, the central character in Rosie Dastgir's first novel, points it out excitedly to his date. "Look!" he exclaims. I have one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and one in the West - at the same time. This is us, Farrah, isn't it? Eastern Westerners. This self-conscious observation, which any decent student would immediately underline, is one of many that brand Dastgir's novel as an example of the rapidly growing category of postcolonial literature. "A Small Fortune" is a capable addition to its ranks - albeit too familiar and too heavy with generic reflections on the clashing of cultures. At the start, the middle-aged Harris is broke. He's been living in a rain-soaked northern town ever since his English wife ended their marriage, running a corner store that can't seem to turn a profit, paying off a mortgage and depending on a stack of credit cards for basic expenses. Yet when he receives his divorce settlement - a "small fortune" of £53,294 - he declines the opportunity to reduce his debt. Instead, he turns over almost the entire sum to his cousin Nawaz, who could use the cash but is far from the most deserving party. Harris insists he has merely lent the money to Nawaz, while Nawaz treats it as a gift he needn't return. A contract might have been a good idea, but it's too late - family and business have officially mixed. Meanwhile, Harris briskly alienates his friends and relatives. He offends an impoverished cousin back in Pakistan, who feels entitled to a share of the settlement. He causes a rift with his daughter, Alia, a "modern girl, born and bred in England," when he sends an emissary to spy on her. He turns off Farrah, his romantic interest, with his traditional views on parenting and marriage. The conflict between what Harris calls "the English way of putting freedom and pleasure before family and duty" and the Pakistani way (the inverse) colors his various relationships. It's a well-worn theme that Dastgir tweaks by having her characters invoke the concept of family manipulatively, in pursuit of selfish ends. Nawaz, who takes seriously the idea that blood ties confer obligation, puts up Harris when he's sick and asks for nothing in return, at least not explicitly. "You're not indebted," he says. You're family. Then he uses this adage to justify keeping the £50,000 "gift." Similarly, Harris preys on Alia's sense of filial responsibility. When he's feeling lonely, he exaggerates his illness to shame her into visiting him. Dastgir handles other motifs from the East-West canon less adroitly. There's an obligatory feel to the way she describes a young Muslim's flirtation with radical Islam, as if she's checking an item off a to-do list. She also sometimes veers into social commentary that reduces characters to caricatures, as when a rich woman from Lahore acknowledges that "life is very difficult in the rural areas" while unpacking seven new sweaters for her husband, one for each day of the week. Too often Dastgir's characters speak in thesis statements. Home, away. East, West," Farrah remarks. Civilized, barbaric. What do they really mean? Such a pointed question is the mark of an author not yet confident in her ability to nudge readers in the right direction - a needless insecurity, in Dastgir's case. A more delicate "Small Fortune," stripped of interpretive signposts, would be no less clear and much more affecting. Juliet Lapidos is a staff editor in the editorial department of The Times.