The Devourers

Starred review from May 16, 2016
Das’s brutal, intoxicating, and gorgeously visceral debut merges an often mythic sensibility with an appreciation for the coarse beauty of the everyday. This tale of shape-shifters connects Mughal India, under the shade of a newly built Taj Majal, to modern Kolkata while exploring the nature of story and history. Prof. Alok Mukherjee meets an extraordinary stranger who claims to be half werewolf, at a musical festival in present-day Kolkata. After the man gives him a strange, compelling story in the form of a vision, Alok agrees to transcribe two 17th-century scrolls for him. Within one is the story of Fenrir, a wanderer of the many-cultured ancient race of human-hunting monsters called vukodlak; the other holds the autobiography of Cyrah, a strong, defiant human woman whom Fenrir, against the strict taboos of his kind, does not hunt not as prey, but rapes to create his child. Das creates a feeling of urgency amid a sense of timelessness and feeds a fascination with the alien that is enhanced by dives into terrifying intimacy. Agent: Ron Eckel, Cooke Agency.

One evening at a traditional music festival outside Kolkata, Alok meets a mysterious stranger who claims to be half werewolf. Intrigued, Alok wants to know more and is drawn into a murky world. Narrator Shishir Kurup does a masterful job differentiating between Alok, the slightly nerdy and somewhat shy history professor, and the stranger, a dangerous and smouldering enigma. When the stranger gives Alok a manuscript from the Mughal era to transcribe, the character Cyrah is introduced. Meera Simhan narrates this portion of the story, and she perfectly captures Cyrah's confusion, rage, and ambivalence at the events that sweep her up. This audiobook will not be to everyone's taste, as it straddles the line between fantasy and horror, but those it does appeal to will be richly rewarded. K.M.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

February 1, 2017

Equal parts romance, fairy tale, horror, history, travelog, and treatise on the transformative power of storytelling, Das's debut combines a dual narrative about the developing relationship between two strangers with a fantastical tale set seemingly long ago. One December evening in Kolkata, Alok, a history professor, meets an enigmatic man who announces, "I'm a werewolf." Undeterred, Alok is drawn into the stranger's stories, which are so captivating that he's unsure if he's just listening or actually experiencing them. Alok eventually agrees to transcribe the stranger's trove of aging notebooks and parchments, which reveal a love triangle that meanders through the Mughal Empire and Europe of centuries past, to reveal who--and what--the stranger truly is. With impeccable pacing and controlled elegance, Shishir Kurup smoothly performs most of the narrative, even managing to insert the occasional footnote seamlessly. Although her chapters are comparatively few, Meera Simhan manifests the single female character with an impressive range, effortlessly moving among betrayal, longing, hope, and resignation. VERDICT Sophisticated readers in search of a mesmerizing tale--think Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go or Lauren Beukes's The Shining Girls or Broken Monsters--will appreciate this superb performance. ["A sensual tale of violence and desire, Das's debut will take readers from the streets of modern Kolkata to the site of the construction of the Taj Mahal during the height of the Mughal empire": LJ 7/16 starred review of the Del Rey: Ballantine hc.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

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