So, shall we start with Z? In a year where so many things have happened in so many ways, most of them surprising, a rather topsy-turvy year, Z is a good place to start. And that would be Zadie Smith’s Swing Time. The Guardian calls the novel, her fifth, “her finest”.
It tells of two girls who meet at a community dance class. Their journeys symbolise the changes in their lives, from local housing estates to feeling the world. Great plot, social commentary and chewable characters, that’s the dope on Swing Time.
Logically, the second should be B. So be it. This year, the Booker went to Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. The protagonist, known only by his second name, is Me. I mean, that’s his name. He grows up dreaming of a good life after his single father’s pioneering psychological writings are published. He’s even the subject of these studies. But his father is killed, leaving behind only debt for the son. The audacious plot, topsy-turvy and witty, has him facing the Supreme Court for modern-day slavery and segregation.
There are some non-fiction books on our list. Shashi Tharoor’s An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India explains the reason for its title. Whatever they may say they’ve given India — the law, democracy, tea and cricket, the railways — the British did immeasurable moral and physical damage before dropping us like a rag and leaving. Tharoor rebuts every argument that contends that British rule was good for India.
And, we also have Taslima Nasrin’s Exile. It was written five years ago, but the translation (a brilliant effort by Maharghya Chakraborty) reaches us now. It traces the suffocation and frustration of a person incarcerated for saying what she felt. I won’t say more than that; my review of the book appeared in this paper.
The third non-fiction: The Gene: An Intimate History by New York-based physician Siddhartha Mukherjee. It’s a sort of grand saga of an idea, about genetics and how it sweeps through family, society, history. Before their marriage, Mukherjee tells his wife about the madness in his family: father, mother (and her identical twin), cousins, uncles, courted unexpectedly by schizophrenia. The book is as vivid as his earlier one on cancer.
This was also the year of two “mega authors”: Clive Cussler and John Grisham. The former’s Odessa Sea is Dirk Pitt’s 24th outing, and the seventh that Clive co-authored with his son Dirk. Beginning with a mysterious death wave on a Russian freighter, it’s vintage Cussler, Good vs Bad. Grisham tells of a legal battle against corruption, his heroine stronger than he’s ever written. The Whistler is a tense tale of a crooked judge and sudden dead ends, gambling and dangerous stakes.
You should also probably take a look at J D Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. It traces Vance’s own family history of wretchedness, and recollects his discontent when he finds his salary fetching scant resources, while those on welfare can afford better. He talks about the culture that raises “hillbillies”, and how they are responsible for what they are. It’s an interesting study of a pessimistic class surviving on aid on the one hand, and the earnest effort to succeed on the other.
A surprise package is The Parcel, Indian-Canadian author Anosh Irani’s fourth novel. He weaves a disturbing tale set in Mumbai’s Kamathipura, with Madhu, a ritually castrated ex-prostitute, as his protagonist. In her own words, she is a “mere lemon peel lying on the road”. The parcel of the title is Kinjal, a preteen Nepalese girl, whom Madhu must prepare for her first client, the one who’ll get her virginity. A searing story that tears into social attitudes, with a complex character and raw insights, this is a book you must read once you’ve developed the guts for it.
I feel the book I’m reading now must get on this list. The House of Oracles by Chandini Santosh is set in rural Kerala with its grim orthodoxy and political stridency, and vulnerable women. It spans a time of great change and fragility. I was struck by the words and descriptions, recollecting something Arundhati Roy told me 19 years ago when I marvelled at her exquisite use of words: “It’s just a matter of putting the right words in the right place.” Easier said than done! Reading this book, I thought of that.
Remember the girl whom Instagram apologised to? She posted a series of pictures of herself with tell-tale signs of menstruation, and Instagram had them removed. But they were grandly reinstated with an apology to the girl. The girl is Rupi Kaur, and her book of poems is Milk & Honey. An honest book, divided into four chapters, plumbing bitter depths and dark corners, finding sweetness therein. Her poetry has been described as artistic and wise.
I would also suggest The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
And for those who may feel rather glum after reading these books, there’s always Scrappy Little Nobody by Academy Award-nominated actor Anna Kendrick and our own Twinkle Khanna’s The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad. For a topsy-turvy year, 2016 produced a great variety of great books. Savour them before the next year offers its bit.