Narcopolis : [a novel

Jeet Thayil’s luminous debut novel completely subverts and challenges the literary traditions for which the Indian novel is celebrated. This is a book about drugs, sex, death, perversion, addiction, love, and god, and has more in common in its subject matter with the work of William S. Burroughs or Baudelaire than with the subcontinent’s familiar literary lights. Above all, it is a fantastical portrait of a beautiful and damned generation in a nation about to sell its soul. Written in Thayil’s poetic and affecting prose, Narcopolis charts the evolution of a great and broken metropolis. Narcopolis opens in Bombay in the late 1970s, as its narrator first arrives from New York to find himself entranced with the city’s underworld, in particular an opium den and attached brothel. A cast of unforgettably degenerate and magnetic characters works and patronizes the venue, including Dimple, the eunuch who makes pipes in the den; Rumi, the salaryman and husband whose addiction is violence; Newton Xavier, the celebrated painter who both rejects and craves adulation; Mr. Lee, the Chinese refugee and businessman; and a cast of poets, prostitutes, pimps, and gangsters. Decades pass to reveal a changing Bombay, where opium has given way to heroin from Pakistan and the city’s underbelly has become ever rawer. Those in their circle still use sex for their primary release and recreation, but the violence of the city on the nod and its purveyors have moved from the fringes to the center of their lives. Yet Dimple, despite the bleakness of her surroundings, continues to search for beauty—at the movies, in pulp magazines, at church, and in a new burka-wearing identity. After a long absence, the narrator returns in 2004 to find a very different Bombay. Those he knew are almost all gone, but the passion he feels for them and for the city is revealed. Shortlisted for the 2012 Booker Prize. Shuklaji Street, In Old Bombay. In Rashid's Opium Room The Air Is Thick And Potent. A Beautiful Young Woman Leans To Hold A Long-stemmed Pipe Over A Flame, Her Hair Falling Across Her Dark Eyes. Around Her, Men Sprawl And Mutter In The Gloom, Each One Drifting With His Own Tide. Here, People Say That You Introduce Only Your Worst Enemy To Opium. Outside, Stray Dogs Lope In Packs. Street Vendors Hustle. Hookers Call For Custom Through The Bars Of Their Cages As Their Pimps Slouch In Doorways In The Half-light. There Is An Underworld Whisper Of A New Terror: The Pathar Maar, The Stone Killer, Whose Victims Are The Nameless, Invisible Poor. There Are Too Many Of Them To Count In This Broken City. Machine Generated Contents Note: Book One The City Of O -- 1.dimple -- 2.rumi On Pimps -- 3.a Painter Visits -- 4.mr Lee's Lessons In Living -- Book Two The Story Of The Pipe -- 1.in Spain With Mr Lee -- 2.white Lotus, White Clouds -- 3.'opium-smoking Bandit' -- 4.his Father, The Insect -- 5.'light Me A Cigarette' -- 6.to Wuhan -- 7.twice Abducted -- 8.to Bombay -- 9.the Pipe Comes To Rashid's -- Book Three The Intoxicated -- 1.a Walk On Shuklaji Street -- 2.bengali -- 3.business Practices Among The Criminal Class: An Offer -- 4.the Sari And The Burkha -- 5.'dum Maro Dum' -- 6.stinking Asafoetida -- 7.business Practices Among The Criminal Class: C & E -- 8.a Chemical Understanding -- 9.the Intoxicated Entity -- 10.confessional -- 11.flight -- 12.rehab, Relapse -- Book Four Some Uses Of Reincarnation -- 1.a Large Accumulation Of Small Defeats -- 2.the Citizen. Jeet Thayil. Shuklaji Street, in Old Bombay. In Rashid's opium room the air is thick and potent. A beautiful young woman leans to hold a long-stemmed pipe over a flame, her hair falling across her dark eyes. Around her, men sprawl and mutter in the gloom, each one drifting with his own tide. Here, people say that you introduce only your worst enemy to opium. Outside, stray dogs lope in packs. Street vendors hustle. Hookers call for custom through the bars of their cages as their pimps slouch in doorways in the half-light. There is an underworld whisper of a new terror: the Pathar Maar, the stone killer, whose victims are the nameless, invisible poor. There are too many of them to count in this broken city. Narcopolis is a rich, chaotic, hallucinatory dream of a novel that captures the Bombay of the 1970s in all its compelling squalor. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, it is a journey into a sprawling underworld written in electric and utterly original prose. A tale of vice and passion set against a backdrop of late 1970s Bombay finds a New Yorker becoming entranced with the underworld culture of an opium den and brothel where he encounters a pipe-making eunuch, a violent businessman, and a Chinese refugee Portrays a city in collision with itself. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, this title is a journey into a sprawling underworld.