Suroopa Mukherjee

Set in New Delhi and Varanasi, India, this debut novel* begins with the arrival of a young boy in an upper middle class Bengali household and it is his arrival which sets off an exploration of past and present, in the entwined lives of six people. The multiple narratives spiral around a central mystery that is not resolved until the very end, and despite some seemingly overgenerous or awkward use of idioms (i.e. getting down to brass tacks) which gave the prose a translated feel at times, the story and characters are compelling and I stayed up late to finish it (something I rarely do these days). The dust jacket includes these few lines, which I feel accurately describes the novel and which I cannot improve upon: The novel is full of the sights, sounds and scents of India and delivers both an exploration of conflicts peculiar to Indian society and a universal underlying message about the strength of love and how it can be both selfish and selfless.

*this is the author's first adult novel.… (meer)