This Place

Description

‘[Bagchi] approximates the surface emptiness and sudden intimacy of urban American life itself.’ Biblio’This place, this “gathering spot” of feelings and experiences, is, like the life of the characters who inhabit it, touched by a tenuous beauty.’ The Indian Express’Such consistent excellence in the crafting and executing of plot is rare in most writers of contemporary fiction.’ MintJeevan Sharma, an Indian immigrant in the US and a former taxi driver, manages his Pakistani landlord Shabbir Ahmad’s accounts in return for rent-free accommodation. The quiet rhythm of his days in Baltimore is punctuated only by interactions with his neighbours on 26th Street: Miss Lucy, an old black lady who makes him pancakes; Henry, a World War II veteran, and his dog Oscar; and Matthew and Kay, a married couple in their late twenties, who are negotiating a difficult relationship. Then, two things happen to throw his life into disarray: the sudden arrival of Sunita, a young woman who has walked away from a cheating husband, and the decision by the City of Baltimore to demolish the block that they live in. Will Jeevan be able to protect his old and infirm friends from the power of the City and Shabbir’s greed? Can his settled solitude withstand the possibility of happiness with someone else? This Place is a novel about a group of people for whom neighbourhood means more than simply living next to each other. It is a book about accepting and fighting against impermanence. It is also a book about South Asians in America at the end of the twentieth century.