"Small Island " by Andrea Levy, Picador, c.2005.
Hortense and Gilbert Joseph, black Jamaican immigrants living in London immediately post-World War II, try to build their lives together as members of the British Empire, only to find that Mother England is less than tolerant of her colored children.

Queenie and Bernard, white and English, have issues of their own to deal with. Bernard, presumed dead, turns up at his front door two years after the war has ended, to find his wife has taken in black lodgers to support herself.

I had the eerie feeling that I was actually hearing the voices in this novel. The author has somehow managed to commit to paper the cadences of the Jamaican patois and British and American wartime slang. Through chapters told alternately from the point of view of one or another character, the personalities and histories of the four major players and several others come to life with humor, pathos, drama, and compassion. Certainly the characters are overdrawn, but as representatives of the events of their day, they effectively drive home the difficulties faced by servicemen after the war, as well as those faced by immigrants. This would make a good book for a discussion group.