'This stunning crisply-paced novel reveals its interwoven themes and storylines in social-realist style. Manual For A Decent Life is excitingly ambitious, exploring dilemmas around politics, gender and sex at a fascinating moment in Indian history. Kavita A. Jindal brings her themes to life via a gripping story featuring family dynasties, violent death, conflicts between love and ambition, sex and betrayal, and an original take on the absurdities of societal conventions in small towns and big cities.’--Michele Roberts, Author of the Man-Booker-Prize shortlisted Daughters of the House
Set against turbulent times in politics, Jindal unfolds the life and times of Waheeda, a determined middle-class Muslim woman aiming to win a seat in Parliament, whose personal life gets tragically entangled with Monish, the son of a business tycoon. Jindal uses her considerable story-telling power to present a volatile mix of murder and mayhem, the clash of religion and traditional practices with love, sex, greed, and power. The dialogue is down-to-earth, the domestic space rendered in fine detail, and the cultural landscape sharply observed. The rapid pace of the plot makes for edge-of-seat excitement. Jindal’s novel offers a telling commentary on the bigotry of our times and the potential for women to play centre stage in public affairs.--Saleem Peeradina, Author of Heart’s Beast: New and Selected Poems
While exploring the tensions that exist between the personal and the political in an Indian Muslim single mother’s life, Jindal has created a compelling novel that is impossible to put down.--Manju Kapur
Manual For A Decent Life is a heart-searching novel with a wide sweep. Its themes of Indian family, female identity and power struggles are of contemporary significance.--Russell Celyn Jones
