A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

As a long-time fan of Indian fiction, I was surprised that I had never heard of this author before, but it seems everyone else was keeping him a secret from me. It even has the slightly dubious distinction of ending up on Oprah’s Book Club. Mistry seems to be the working-man’s Rushdie – telling these big tales of Indian life without all the bells and whistles (and more full stops).

But that’s what I love about Indian fiction; smelling the streets from the descriptions, seeing the crazy colours, knowing the overbearing families that make up this insane sounding country that I’m desperate to get to one day soon. And while the story is undoubtedly brilliant (and the ending one of the most heartbreaking I’ve read), the writing is just a little bit plain. While other Indian books I’ve read have been in vivid technicolour, this was black and white. But maybe I just missed something, because it was Sam’s favourite read of the year and it’s made many others I know cry. It just didn’t have the same impact on me for some reason. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t sections of this book that made me want to scream ‘This is so unjust and unfair and frustrating!!!’ I have a feeling that’s what being in India would be like on a daily basis.

It’s not as brutal as Adiga’s The White Tiger, or as epic as Naipul’s A Bend in the River. It has this pervading resignation to it, that the characters rally against with everything they’ve got, but in the end, Mother India and her Darkness are too strong for the humble tailors who are the protagonists of this tale.