THE corner shop is not a place of grand narratives. “Reserved for the purchase of emergency milk and Rizlas”, it offers neither the drama of a supermarket nor the space for many characters. Yet it is an institution at the heart of British life, a lone outpost of commerce embedded within rows of net-curtained terraced houses, and thus a fitting prism through which to see the country.

Yet Mr Sanghera also tells a larger story about the big political and economic struggles of the past half-century. He examines changing attitudes to immigration, the rise of big-box stores and the hollowing out of Britain’s industrial centres. The West Midlands city of Wolverhampton in 1968, when the novel begins, is vastly different from the Wolverhampton of 2012 at the story’s close. For one thing, “Bulberhampton full of bloody Iraqi now,” observes one character, herself a migrant. Mr Sanghera, who grew up in Wolverhampton himself, does a good job of capturing the complications of progress. He leaves it to readers to decide whether these changes have been for the better or worse.

There are few more profound ways for a South Asian migrant to wipe out his individuality than by becoming yet another shopkeeper, notes the youngest member of the corner-shop clan. This fine novel steps behind the counter and shows that this need not be the case.