Gregory David Roberts
An epic novel. And by that I mean huge, covering lots of territory, broad in scope. The book is fiction, but based (presumably loosely) on the life of an escaped Australian convict. In the novel, this character is Lin. Lin has traveled to Bombay to get lost in the sea of people there. He gets involved with the local underworld (working in the money trade, passports, etc.), lives in a slum, spends time in prison, lives in a rural village and works as a talent scout in Bollywood. In all of these contexts, Lin (and we) get to know Bombay and fall in love with the city on a variety of levels. Throughout, the enduring characteristic of Lin is that he will always help a friend, at any cost. And while this often gets him into trouble, it also bonds him to people who help him out as well. After spending a large portion of the novel in Bombay, Lin travels to Afghanistan on a gun delivery mission and we get a good introduction to that country during the Russian occupation. I actually listened to the audio version of this book and it was a fabulous book to listen to. The reader captured the indian accents extremely well and I found myself laughing out loud (which I would not have done with text). In hindsight, the love for Bombay is very romantic and clearly leaves out the crowds and claustrophobia and filth and density of the city. But it makes for a great novel.
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