The Better Man: A Novel

At the heart of Anita Nair's first novel, The Better Man, there's a haunted house--with ghosts lurching around dark hallways and pushing the living down staircases. The cursed construction is in Kaikurussi in central India, and our protagonist, Mukundan, grew up there with his tyrant father and meek, apologetic mother. As the story opens, this frustrated middle-aged writer finds himself returning home, once again taking up residence in his dull, oppressive childhood village. He doesn't want to be there. He drinks rum and fears the dark.

Enter One-Screw-Loose Bhasi, a painter of houses and self-proclaimed healer who sees in Mukundan an opportunity for redemption and friendship. In much of the book Bhasi directly addresses his newfound companion:

Tell me, Mukundan. Tell me what it is that haunts you so. Tell me of the darkness that clouds your life. Tell me why you fold your handkerchief in eight precise squares. Tell me why it is that every strand of coconut fibre has to be heaped in one place when I finish with it. Tell me how it is that you have chained yourself to the clock.

Anita Nair has a great gift for suspense; from the beginning of The Better Man, she hints at profound losses in her characters' pasts, losses that are gradually revealed as the novel progresses. Class antagonisms crop up throughout, threatening to destabilize the village's quiet existence. A warning for language-minded readers: the book's metaphors can be clumsy and strained to bursting ("the sun took a deep breath and began its morning chores"). But fans of fiction from India, who crave passage into that exotic world, will find it highly rewarding. --Ellen Williams