God of Small Things

"Offers such magic, mystery and sadness that, literally, this reader turned the last page and decided to reread it. Immediately. It's that hauntingly wonderful."

-- USA Today

"Outstandin g. A glowing first novel."

-- Newsweek

"A splendid and stunning debut."

-- Washington Post Book World

"A novel of real ambition must invent its own language, and this one does.... A Tiger Woodsian debut."

-- John Updike, The New Yorker

"The quality of Ms. Roy's narration is so extraordinary-- at once so morally strenuous and so imaginatively supple-- that the reader remains enthralled all the way through."

-- New York Times Book Review

Submitted by Publisher, August, 2001

"Roy's intricate, enchanting, and often wry tale is positively mythical. " - Booklist

"Roy's clarity of vision is remarkable, her voice original, her story brilliantly constructed and masterfully told. " - Publishers Weekly

"A truly spectacular debut. " - Kirkus Reviews

Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family. But when their English cousin comes to visit one Christmas, the twins learn that life can change with lightning-bolt swiftness. And lives can twist into new, ugly shapes. . .

"They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much. "

The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a sky blue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen, and so begins their tale. . . .

Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family--their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "gray green. "With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.

The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes--Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.

"A banquet for all the senses", said "Newsweek" of this best-selling and Booker Prize-winning literary novel--a richly textured first book about the tragic decline of one family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love.

The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a sky blue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen, and so begins their tale. . . . Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family - their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts). When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "gray green. With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it. "

"Offers such magic, mystery and sadness that, literally, this reader turned the last page and decided to reread it. Immediately. It's that hauntingly wonderful. "

-- USA Today

"Outstanding. A glowing first novel. "

-- Newsweek