The City of Devi

Manil Suri

Mumbai is in ruins, under threat of nuclear attack and besieged by gangs of religious fundamentalists. Among the chaos, Sarita searches for her husband accompanied by Jaz, a gay Muslim searching for his lover. Their connected stories unfold in alternate chapters but with so much going on – romance, sex, satire, Bollywood, death and destruction - I'm afraid the author lost me towards the end.

Extract

I laughed off his words – the possibility that he might be having second thoughts alarmed me. Of course I knew him well enough – hadn’t we discussed where we’d live (Colaba), what we’d eat (home cooked food, with lots of restaurant nights off), even how many children we’d have (exactly one – we had to create our very own trinity, after all)? Besides didn’t millions of couples enter unions arranged by their parents, knowing each other even less?

Parallels