Turning the Page

I thought I knew what I would be reading when I opened Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower.  A big, busy novel, bursting with life.  Which it is.  But it’s also hilariously startling and dark, a tale of neighbors who get up to some very bad things.

The residents of the Vishram Society tower in Bombay are respectable people of settled habits.  They pull up chairs outside the door every evening for a nice, gossipy “parliament,” check on each other, invite each other to dinner, and know every nuance of each other’s business.

Then an unscrupulous real estate developer offers them a great deal of money so he can tear down their tower and build a fabulous new skyrise.   And everything changes.

Most of the residents are thrilled at the offer, except for one elderly couple (the wife is almost blind) and the retired, widowed schoolteacher they all respectfully call Masterji.  At first, Masterji says no mostly because he knows that his elderly friends will never be able to say no as firmly as they would like to.  But then it becomes a matter of principle to him not to bow to the bribes from the developer’s “left hand man” and the increasing hints and pressures from the neighbors he thought were his good friends.

How far do things go?  Well, further than you’d think in such a fond, lively satire.  Adiga clearly loves the city of Mumbai, but his story of the haves and have nots and wills and will nots is pretty clear on the bottom line, too.  Arresting.

Here’s one of my favorites from this past year—In Zanesville, by Jo Ann Beard.  It doesn’t actually take place in Zanesville, but the pun must have been irresistible. 

It does take place in a little midwestern town, though, in the 1970s.  And it’s one of those great coming of age novels that makes you remember exactly what being a teenager was like.  (Don’t worry, it’s funny, too.)

Our fourteen-year-old narrator and her best friend, Felicia (sometimes known as Flea), are inseparable allies, relying on each other to get through the everyday traumas of family life, unpopularity at school, the occasional minor crisis like a house fire while babysitting, and major crises like talking to boys.  Till they are sort of accidentally invited to a popular party, and Felicia does something unforgivable.

Beard captures just how emotionally intense that time of life is, but also gives us a quirky, observant, sarcastic main character.  The period setting’s pretty wonderful, too.  This is one to get in line for.