The Windfall

Starred review from May 22, 2017
Culture and capital clash in Basu's charming, funny debut, which finds middle-aged Anil and Bindu Jha flush with new money after Anil sells his phone directory website for a small fortune. The couple moves from their modest, cramped, noisy home in an East Delhi apartment complex to the gated community of Gurgaon, where keeping up appearances means hiring security guards and making extravagant purchases. As they try to adjust to their new lifestyle, their son, Rupak, struggles with his M.B.A. program and his own needs from halfway around the world in upstate New York, oscillating between white Florida native Elizabeth and Serena, also from Delhi, with whom he feels pressured by tradition to pursue companionship. Add to the mix Reema, Mrs. Jha's old friend from East Delhi who finds herself wooed by the brother of the Jhas' new neighbor, and Basu sets the table for a modern and heartfelt comedy of haves and have-nots. Shuttling between characters, the novel addresses a rapidly changing India from a plethora of perspectives, and the result leaves readers laughing and engrossed.

September 4, 2017
When the Jha family, flush with a fortune from the recent sale of Mr. Jha’s website, decide to move from the middle-class neighborhood in East Delhi where they have lived for 30 years to the gated community of Gurgaon, they have to confront family, money, and the excitement of conspicuous consumption. (“Why leave a carbon fingerprint when you can leave a footprint?” Mr. Jha queries at one point.) Nankani handles the many characters with aplomb. For Mrs. Jha, a more traditional Indian woman who clings to old ways like having the car keys blessed at the temple and wearing starched cotton saris, Nankani adopts a lilting and more heavily accented cadence; for Rupak, the Jhas’ rudderless son at school in the United States, she takes on a flat American inflection; and she creates over-the-top voices for the Jhas’ new next-door-neighbors, whom the story presents as caricatures: the status-obsessed but small-minded patriarch, his idle and corpulent wife, and their useless adult son. Overall, Nankani’s sensitive narration enhances the novel’s portrayal of complex contemporary India. A Crown hardcover.

Soneela Nankani's quick, sardonic narration lovingly channels the outlandish and often comedic mishaps that befall the newly wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Jha in India as they rise from their middle-class roots and settle in the extravagantly wealthy city of Gurgaon. Nankani's tone is that of a raised eyebrow as the Jhas get caught up in trying to keep up with the quirks and curiosities of their rich neighbors. Nankani's supply of versatile accents shines, giving depth to the cast of old friends who aren't ready to let the Jhas go. Between the humor, Nankani provides a thoughtful voice to characters who are struggling, such as the Jhas' son, who is failing college, and their widowed neighbor, who may be ready for a second chance at love. J.E.C. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine