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By Megha Majumdar

$25.95

ISBN: 9780525658696

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Knopf - June 2nd, 2024

The ways in which idle speculation and innocent dreams of glory can inadvertently ripple into riptides while calculating ambition can whip the winds of politics to cyclone force: all may be found in the twining lives and voices of a young Muslim woman who flings words into cyberspace that say more than she means, the outcast transgender who fervently longs to be a star, and the self-seeking gym teacher with an eye for the main chance. The young woman, Javin, writes the fatal words that create the maelstrom; Lovely prepares for his acting class, hope in his heart; and Pt. Sir re-writes the past in his own best interest, as the reader is hurtled forward, as fearful for and at the same time as incredulous as is Jivan. A thriller on one level, a brilliantly crafted novel that perfectly captures the guilelessness of youth and its terrifying fragility on another, it is also a devastating portrayal of the corruption of the political state—in India or, for that matter, anywhere.