Last Man in Tower

July 25, 2011
When Mumbai was still Bombay, the apartment building became the new village, inhabitants growing up and old together, intertwined in one another's rhythms and needs. Tower A of the Vishram Society is one such buildingâboth a character and the setting in this highly allegorical yet riveting novel, Adiga's first since winning the Man Booker Prize for The White Tiger. Here, Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Communists have lived together for decades, finding recent common ground in their suspicions about the new "modern" single girl in 3B. But when a developer offers each resident an astronomical sum to move out so that he might build a luxury condo, greed threatens to destroy the community. But one holdout, the teacher Mr. Masterji, is determined that knowledge and principle will protect him. Though occasionally overwritten ("The hypodermic needle of the outside world had bent at his epidermis and never penetrated"), Adiga is a master of pacing. The momentum builds as Masterji's neighbors become consumed by money, allowing Adiga to show his characters grappling with circumstances, and enduring difficult changes of heart. Adiga takes a harsh look at Mumbai's new wealth, but his characters are more than archetypes. Though the allure of capitalism has won them over, the inhabitants of Tower A are at the mercy of the rich as much as their neighbor, the teacher, is at the mercy of them.

Starred review from August 15, 2011

Two strong-willed men, a developer and a holdout, propel this gripping second novel about real estate, greed and community in Mumbai (Bombay), India; Adiga won the Man Booker prize for his debut (The White Tiger, 2008).

There's a building in Mumbai we get to know as well as the two protagonists. Vishram Society Tower A is an unremarkable six-story structure a stone's throw from the Vakola slums. Water supply is poor. Pests necessitate visits from the "seven-kinds-of-vermin" man. Still, the building has class. The residents of this co-op are middle-class professionals, respectable people typified by Yogesh Murthy, known as Masterji, the 61-year-old retired physics teacher and recent widower. Mr. Shah is the far from respectable but hugely successful is the builder. His is a rags-to-riches story; starting with smuggling and slum clearance, he's now at the top of the heap. Vishram's two towers' proximity to the financial center attract his attention. They must be demolished to make way for his magnificent new project. Shah's buyout offer is generous, but it comes with a strict deadline; acceptance must be unanimous. There are four no votes. Masterji votes no as an act of solidarity with his dear friends the Pintos, an old married couple. Then they're threatened, and suddenly Masterji is the lone holdout. Stubborn and irascible, he is that rare individual who has no price; he wants nothing. Shah could have his enforcer cripple or kill him, but he wants the building's gossipy denizens, by now frantic for the money, to do the dirty work. With great skill, Adiga spotlights the slippery slope, as the unthinkable becomes the thinkable and finally the doable. Really, what choice do his neighbors have? The author sets us up for the kill while placing it in context: the riotous sights, sounds and smells of Mumbai.

Adiga nails the culture of corruption. How exciting to watch a writer come into his own, surpassing the achievement of his first novel.

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April 1, 2011

Real estate developer Dharmen Shah wants to tear down a decrepit apartment building in Mumbai and erect luxury towers. But a teacher named Masterji refuses to move, and his formerly friendly neighbors turn on him (they want their buyouts). Adiga won the Man Booker Prize for his last novel, 2008's The White Tiger, and I found his subsequent story collection, Between the Assassinations, even more intriguing. With a reading group guide and lots of online promotion.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2011
In this slowly coalescing yet ultimately high-stakes drama concerning the fate of an old apartment building on the swampy outskirts of seething, polluted Mumbai, Man Booker Prize winner Adiga (The White Tiger, 2008) continues his satirical inquiry into the forces at work in the new India. Dharmen Shah, an excessively ambitious developer, is hell-bent on buying out the co-op group, tearing down the tower, and erecting a monumental dream palace. His cash offer functions like a stick thrust into a beehive. Everyone is abuzz and ready to sting as some view the buyout as a godsend, while others think it's a catastrophe. In this shrewdly constructed microcosm, Adiga wryly yet tenderly portrays a spectrum of struggling individuals, among them Mrs. Puri and her Down syndrome son; social worker Mrs. Rego, whose husband abandoned the family; and retired teacher Masterji, who has lost his daughter and his wife. As the promise of wealth trumps basic decency, let alone morals, Masterji, a tragically deluded man of principle and pride, becomes the last holdout, clinging to the tower as emblematic of all that is under assault in a mindlessly greedy, materialistic world. Adiga's calculatingly detailed and elaborately suspenseful, charming yet murderous tale asks painful questions about community, the dark bewitchment of money, and all that we endanger for progress. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Because Adiga's devilishly on-target comedy has earned him fame and a major readership, a hefty first printing and extensive promotion are set for this riveting novel of greed, conspiracy, and bloodshed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)