Kitaab Review: Reality Bites: A Town Like Ours by Kavery Nambisan

It is a novel that raises and puts on the table truths-that-must-not-be-named as we collectively collude in an unspoken conspiracy to paper over the unseemly pockmarked aspects of the accepted model of ‘development’. The putrid underbelly under the glossy ‘modern’ feel is exposed as the author fixes her clinical gaze through her narrator on the unacknowledged recesses and crannies of urbanisation, says Preeta Menon in this review

A Town Like Ours

Author: Kavery Nambisan

Publisher: Aleph, India

Pages: 242

Price: 395

There is a sense of déjà vu when you read this quiet unpretentious novel; and you realize that the title primes you for it. A Town Like Ours is full of characters and stories that seem to be a part of something or someone we have heard of, read about or know. It zooms in on the otherwise neglected territory of emerging small town India with its unapologetic local flavour, through which Nambisan fashions a commentary on the larger picture. It is a novel that raises and puts on the table truths-that-must-not-be-named as we collectively collude in an unspoken conspiracy to paper over the unseemly pockmarked aspects of the accepted model of ‘development’. The putrid underbelly under the glossy ‘modern’ feel is exposed as the author fixes her clinical gaze through her narrator on the unacknowledged recesses and crannies of urbanization.