(Random House, $27)
“Remember the title of Katherine Boo’s new book,” because you will eventually see it shortlisted for some “Very Important Literary Prizes,” said Terry Hong in CSMonitor.com. In her stunning debut as a nonfiction author, the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter presents an “unblinkingly honest” portrait of life in Annawadi, a swamp of a slum tucked behind a concrete wall next to Mumbai’s airport. In a place where 3,000 men, women, and children crowd a single half-acre and everyday dramas include “explosive violence fueled by religion, caste, and gender,” the 11-member Husain family easily earns the story’s central focus. By the time a neighbor sets herself on fire and frames the Husains’ primary earner for her murder as she’s dying, readers have begun a journey from which they’ll be “unable to turn away.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
There’s a common theme to everything Boo writes, said Patrick French in Bloomberg Businessweek. The poor, we learn, face the same concerns as the rest of us—“difficult neighbors, marital infidelity, bosses who don’t keep their promises.” Yet everyday tribulations regularly escalate because the “margin for error” in these lives is so narrow: Any day might be the day a bulldozer levels your home, or the day a family member is “arrested arbitrarily, requiring the payment of a huge bribe.” Occasionally, Boo’s attention to small details causes her to lose sight of the broader changes remaking India year after year. But while her book “may fall short in terms of context and history,” it “works in close-up.” In fact, “it feels like a punch in the stomach.”
-
Weapons: Julia Garner stars in 'hyper-eerie' psychological thrillerThe Week Recommends Zach Cregger's 'top notch' new film opens with 17 children disappearing at exactly the same time
-
Freakier Friday: Lohan and Curtis reunite for 'uneven' but 'endearing' sequelThe Week Recommends Mother-and-daughter comedy returns with four characters switching bodies
-
Al fresco art: the UK's best sculpture parksThe Week Recommends Soak up the scenery with a stroll through these open-air galleries
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”