"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Mr. Chawla's frustration comes to a head when Sampath loses his menial job at the post office after performing an impromptu cross-dressing strip-tease at his boss's daughter's wedding. Confined to the house in disgrace, Sampath runs away from home and takes refuge in the branches of a guava tree in an abandoned orchard outside of town. At first family and townsfolk think he's mad, but in an inspired moment of self-preservation Sampath, who had spent his time in the post office reading other people's mail, reveals some choice secrets about his persecutors and convinces them that he is, in fact, clairvoyant. It isn't long before Mr. Chawla sees the commercial possibilities of having a holy man in the family, and pretty soon the guava orchard has become the latest stop along the spiritual tourism trail.
Take one holy man in a guava tree, add a venal father, a food-obsessed mother and a younger sister in love with the Hungry Hop Kwality Ice Cream boy and you've got a recipe for delicious comedy. Mix in a rioting band of alcoholic monkeys, a journalist determined to expose Sampath as a fraud, an unholy trio of hypochondriac district medical officer, army general and university professor, all determined to solve the monkey problem, and you've got a real hullabaloo. Kiran Desai's delirious tale of love, faith, and family relationships is funny, smartly written, and reminiscent of other works by Indian authors writing in English such as Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh, Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices and Shashi Tharoor's Show Business. --Alix Wilber
"Clearly envisioned and opulently told."
--Chicago Tribune
"Delectable--With this sprightly first novel, Kiran Desai takes her place among the pack of gifted young Indian writers."
--The Wall Street Journal
"Crackling, witty, sharply visual prose--[Desai] is a delightfully funny, amiable satirist."
--Atlantic Monthly
"A festival of comic eccentricity--exudes charisma, poetry, and joy in language and life."
--Baltimore Sun
"A charming, lyrical fable about destiny and the nature of kinship."
--Harper's Bazaar
"Wryly hilarious--a roller-coaster ride through the nonsense of chance and human foolishness."
--Portland Oregonian
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