The Cripple and His Talismans

April 4, 2005
An unnamed narrator searches for his missing arm in a Bombay marked by odd magic and peopled by surreal prophets in Irani's lush debut novel. The protagonist awakes in a hospital with his arm amputated, but with no memory of how he was injured. Thus begins his quest: a search to unravel the mystery of the missing limb that signifies a spiritual journey. A young man of privilege, he forgoes material comforts for an austere existence more fitting for a "novice cripple" and discovers a Bombay he never knew. Various underworld characters offer him cryptic clues: the beggar Gura instructs him to listen to the sounds of the streets for answers, a woman selling rainbows warns him of an evil eye, and a leper gives him a finger, which he carries thereafter in search of its significance. On this colorful journey of self-discovery, the narrator investigates his past and faces his sins. Though the novel's many instructive riddles ("Your eyes see only that which they are meant to") can read as New Agey sound bites, an undercurrent of dark humor as well as Irani's atmospheric evocation of Bombay enliven this compelling story. Agent, Denise Bukowski.

February 1, 2005
The surreal world takes center stage in this vibrant fable about a young boy who wakes up in a hospital minus an arm, with no memory of what happened to him. Indian writer Irani's debut is set in the teeming city of Bombay, where capricious characters populate both land and sea--a woman sells rainbows, a man builds finger-sized caskets, a giant dwells underwater, pulling unsuspecting souls down at will. Determined to recover his lost limb, the boy follows a series of cryptic clues ("You must go there," says the giant, pointing a severed finger at the boy's heart) and probes his own dark past (including the day he found his mother cheating on his father with a well-known judge). Ashamed of his status as a cripple, he covers his left side with a shawl and even attempts suicide--with darkly comic results. Irani's prose is audacious and spare (squeamish readers may find some of his images unsettling). A challenging offering from a writer with a penchant for mixing the profane and divine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)