Low

by Jeet Thayil

Overview

Ullis went to the bathroom and carefully unfolded the business card and placed it on the sink. Then he rolled up a note and snorted the last of his wife's ashes.

When Ullis discovers that his wife Aki has committed suicide, he escapes to Bombay with a bag of drugs for one final party. On the plane, he finds himself sitting by a glamorous society lady called Payal, and a friendship of sorts blooms into life. Over the coming days they embark on a whirlwind of self-destructive misadventures as Ullis attempts to mask his grief through excessive narcotics, resulting in episodes of increasing dysfunctionality that flirt with total self-obliteration - and perhaps a kind of resolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571356416
Publisher:	Faber and Faber
Publication date:	02/25/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jeet Thayil is a poet, musician and novelist. He was born in Kerala in 1959 and educated at Jesuit schools in Bombay, Hong Kong and New York. He worked as a journalist for twenty-three years before writing his bestselling debut novel, Narcopolis, which won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Man Asian Literary Prize. His second novel, The Book of Chocolate Saints, was longlisted for the DSC Prize and described as 'easily the most original and formally inventive novel to come out of India in years' by Salman Rushdie. Thayil's five poetry collections include These Errors Are Correct, which won the 2013 Sahitya Akademi Award (India's National Academy of Letters) and he is also the editor of The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets.

Editorial Reviews

A novel of our times…. Low is beautifully written, intelligent and gripping, and elicits compassion for a character who is pitifully adrift, despite what some might see as his disqualifying privilege.” ― Spectator USA

"The book is relevant now on a time and space level, and serves as a detailed portrayal of our culture and political climate. But the themes woven in: disregard, grief, aimlessness, love. These remain timeless. And even disregarding all this, Low is a picture of a moment, a snapshot in time and of the depths of a single character’s despair. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be more than that. —  Chicago Review of Books

From the Publisher