Between the Assassinations (2009)

This is essentially a collection of short stories set in the town of Kittur. The author paints his characters with a fine brush, you can feel the heat, the flies and the smell. It is however only a collection of vignettes and I feel that it would have benefitted from a narrative flowing through the book. Some might say that there indeed is, be it entrapment, segregation, discrimination or injustice but it is left to the reader to notice the similarities. All in all I was left feeling slightly let down despite having enjoyed the journey to the end.

Based in the Indian City of Kittur you follow the lives of people in the village and how they cope with the day to day problems.

Religion, class and status are the main areas that come up in each of the lives followed. From following the local baggage handler at the train station who rose up from the local coffee shop through to the local delivery boy who goes round on his pedal bike delivering furniture. Each person has dreams, each persons dreams are shattered and knocked to the dusty ground. But each time they stand back up, dust themselves down and start again.

They know in the back of their minds the truth that this is there life....but dreaming is the only thing that can make the truth bearable.

A well written book which just flows as you go through it. Each person seems real to you and not just a character on the pages. One definately to add to your collections! ( )

The setting Adiga crafts was absolutely absorbing. I could literally feel the sweltering heat he describes and smell the stench of the garbage piling up in the streets. The filth – physical and metaphorical – angered me and I could feel everyone in the city’s blood boiling and seething with hatred under the surface.

He also managed to make me fall in love with all but a few of the characters he introduces over seven days. (Adiga says that the town’s richness demands a minimum stay of a week.) Some of the characters are the ones people would turn away from in either fear or shame at their condition, and yet Adiga forces us to all look at these people and see them as real.

I enjoyed this novel even if it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. You can bet I will picking up Adiga’s other novel for which he won the Man Booker Prize. ( )

A collection of short stories from the city of Kittur. All with vividly drawn characters, expertly told, all engrossing - and painful. ( )