Indian diplomat and first-novelist Swarup uses a heavy-handed formula to frame a high-concept retelling of good vanquishing...
A cheery picaresque in which an orphaned, ill-educated boy abandoned to hardscrabble existence in the teeming slums of Dharavi, India, wins a billion rupees on a nationally televised quiz show—and then is forced to defend himself against charges of cheating.
Thomas Mohammad Ram will need the gods of all three religions that engendered his name to help him survive the trials that befall him. Deserted at birth, Ram spends a few formative years at a Catholic orphanage, where a kindly priest looks after him. When the priest is killed by an evil he refused to acknowledge, Ram must navigate the consequences of other temporary benefactors’ greed and of his own desire to keep from an early grave. His sojourns include working as a houseboy for Bollywood’s most famous “Queen of Tragedy”; being held captive by an enterprising sadist who intentionally maims children so that they will become more prosperous beggars; running errands for a contract killer with a passion for cricket, and putting in a stint as a “freelance” tour guide at the Taj Majal. But Ram’s most dangerous encounter is with the police, who arrest and beat him after the producers of Who Will Win a Billion? accuse Ram of cheating. After all, they ask, how can a near illiterate have correctly answered all 12 questions, which touched on matters from arcane Indian history to Western classical music? It’s a question Ram’s female defense attorney—who mysteriously appears to demand a fair trial—asks, too. Together, they review a videotape of the show. Each quiz question prompts Ram to narrate in flashback a different chapter in his brief but adventurous life that ultimately—the reader can be absolutely sure—reveals the correct answer.
Indian diplomat and first-novelist Swarup uses a heavy-handed formula to frame a high-concept retelling of good vanquishing evil in the age of reality TV. It’s too pat to be profound, but clever and fun all the same.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-6747-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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