Book Reviews: October 2015

Latest of Rushdie’s accomplishments include a fictional fantasying of a world bereft of one unidimensional dominating race in a battle between the light and the dark. It opens to the reader a world wrought with parallel possibilities of worlds; the one described poetically in Rushdie’s words full of an army of descendants of the otherworldly jinn Dunia and a mere mortal. This race is pitted against another in a battle spanning thousand and one nights or two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights, in this spectacular feat of narration essaying the age-old traditions of the East into exemplars of modern doctrines.

Negroland: A Memoir, by Margo Jefferson (PenguinRandomHouse, September 2015)

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The immediacy and relevance in tone are at odds with the thematic of the novel by Pulitzer-prize winning author Margo Jefferson, wherein she recounts her sheltered upbringing in a privileged black neighbourhood of Chicago spanning decades which have seen her father working as the head of paediatrics at Provident, America’s oldest black hospital at the time and her mother as a socialite. It retells the story of a black bourgeoisie that tried to distinguish and carve a niche for itself drawing on influences from both white and lower-class black Americans caught amidst radical historic events like the civil rights movement, the rise of feminism and the aftermath of a nation surging with racial animosity and inflation.

Portraits of the World's Most Stylish Women, by David Downton (Laurence King Publishing, September 2015)

David Downton’s scant strokes of genius on paper are epiphanous dives into the mind of one of the greatest fashion illustrators of all time. Having drawn some of the industry’s most illustrious names ranging from Karlie Kloss, Cate Blanchett, Linda Evangelista and Carolina Herrera, Portraits of the World's Most Stylish Women contains over 150 of Downton’s drawings accompanied with snippets of stories documenting his work in progress. The book of portraits has a befitting foreword from Christian Lacroix and an afterword by Dita Von Teese and specially commissioned images of Downton while at work at The Claridges Hotel, London during his artistic residency there.

The Raj at War, by Dr. Yasmin Khan (Random House, July 2015)

Seldom are stories that reverberate through history like bullet casings on cold metal told for decisive mass consumption. Dr. Khan’s novel chronicles the Second World War through narratives from Indian civilians and the families of those that survived the war and India’s geo-political stance in the 1940s. Those that were a part of Britain’s acquisitions and conquests weren’t merely inanimate entities like land and sovereignty but the flesh, blood and sweat of millions of Indian mercenaries, infantry and cavalry alike. The Raj at War takes into account a riveting timeline of India post and pre-British subjugation to fill the cracks which led to the birth of the Indian democracy.

Aarushi, by Avirook Sen (Penguin India, July 2015)

Journalist Avirook Sen’s probe into the murder of Aarushi Talwar, in Noida skirting New Delhi, seven years ago, opines that the convicted parents of the deceased are without fault. Borne of media and legislative speculation and Sen’s incessant search for some semblance of the truth, this book collects enough evidence to tip the scales in the favour of the parents Rajesh and Nupur Talwar and stands to question the efficacy of a faceted and rusty judicial system.