May 31, 1993
Although Tharoor wrote most of these 15 precocious tales in his teens and early 20s, they display the gift for sparkling social satire and sharp observation of life in India that he brought to The Great Indian Novel and Show Business. Several of them are perfect. Whether depicting a self-important police inspector who bungles a homicide investigation (``The Political Murder''), an orphan who feels manipulated by a child relief agency (``The Five-Dollar Smile''), or a college student who survives a scooter crash in which his friend dies (``The Pyre''), Tharoor has a fine eye for caste and class consciousness. He mocks India's ``mod sophisticates,'' ad executives and bureaucrats. Irreverent tales of college life mingle with intense family dramas: a 17-year-old carries on a brief, torrid affair with his married ``Auntie Rita'' and ``The Professor's Daughter'' is brutally beaten by her old father because of her presumed flirtations. Tharoor, who now lives in New York, sets his funniest tale in the U.S. Fittingly, ``The Solitude of the Short Story Writer'' shows the protagonist scandalizing his friends by writing acerbic, revelatory stories about them.
July 1, 1993
Most of the tales in this collection were written when Tharoor ( Show Business, LJ 5/15/92) was in his late teens and early twenties. Though some of the subject matter is quite adult in nature, the presentation is charmingly naive, exhibiting an unpracticed skill and freshness that recalls creative writing class assignments. Making the best possible use of Tharoor's then-limited experience, these deeply personal stories depict the joys and sorrows of youth and the lessons learned while attaining maturity in locations ranging from Bombay to New York. Recommended for public libraries.-- Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence
Copyright 1993 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.