Description:

Review

“As with The White Tiger, [in Last Man in Tower] Adiga describes an India that is avaricious, acquisitive and insecure. His earlier work told the story of a desperate, rural poverty; Last Man in Tower depicts a genteel middle-class impoverishment of imagination and hope. Whether it is through the fight for water or the battle to board the commuter trains, Mr. Adiga captures with heartbreaking authenticity the real struggle in Indian cities, which is for dignity. A funny yet deeply melancholic work, Last Man in Tower is a brilliant, and remarkably mature, second novel. A rare achievement.”
—The Economist

From the UK:

“Magnificent . . . A richly evoked, Dickensian world that explores the chasm between rich and poor, the venal and the incorruptible . . . Adiga succeeds in giving a voice and a sense of humor to the powerless. . . . All human life—and longing—is here. Marvelous stuff.”
—Sebastian Shakespeare, The Tatler

“As well-paced as any crime story. Every one of the huge cast of characters is brilliantly drawn. I’m aghast with admiration. There is no one writing fiction as good as this in Britain or America.”
—A. N. Wilson, Reader’s Digest

“Evocative, entertaining, and angry . . . All of Adiga’s gifts for sharp social observation and mordant wit [come] to the fore. . . . Teeming with life and skullduggery.”
—Ceri Radford, The Telegraph

“A subtle and nuanced examination of the nature of personal corruption . . . [Adiga] continues his project of shining a light on the changing face of India, bringing us a picture that is as compelling as it is complex.”
—Alex Clark, The Guardian

“Timely . . . An unsettling novel, well suited to the febrile and shifting city it seeks to reclaim.”
—James Purdon, The Observer

“Richly comedic . . . Beautifully done. . . . Funny and engaging as he can be, Adiga never forgets the seriousness of his subject . . . A morality tale for the modern age [that is] as honest as it is entertaining.”
—John Burnside, The Times

"Acute observations and sharp imagery . . . An indictment of the hypocritical mores of the middle class, prepared to cut corners and take recourse to ‘number two activities’ in its hurry to move up in life. Like all cautionary tales, it embodies more than a little truth about our times.”
—Vikas Swarup, Financial Times

“Ambitious . . . Memorable . . . Adiga is Dickensian in the extent of his cast. Around his two main characters he marshals more than 20 others . . . [He] lays out this most frenetic of megalopolises before us, by turns fascinating, sensual and horrifying, as his writing takes an impressive step onwards.”
—Peter Carty, The Independent on Sunday

“Richly evocative . . . To make a building such as a block of flats the frame for a novel has rich possibilities in a modern world where lives are forever being forced together by collective structures. . . . Adiga [shows] considerable skill at evoking the quotidian lives, domestic and communal, of Tower A’s inhabitants.”
—Adam Lively, The Sunday Times

Product Description

Searing. Explosive. Lyrical. Compassionate. Here is the astonishing new novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger, a book that took rage and anger at injustice and turned it into a thrilling murder story. Now, with the same fearlessness and insight, Aravind Adiga broadens his canvas to give us a riveting story of money and power, luxury and deprivation, set in the booming city of Mumbai.

At the heart of this novel are two equally compelling men, poised for a showdown. Real estate developer Dharmen Shah rose from nothing to create an empire and hopes to seal his legacy with a building named the Shanghai, which promises to be one of the city’s most elite addresses. Larger-than-life Shah is a dangerous man to refuse. But he meets his match in a retired schoolteacher called Masterji. Shah offers Masterji and his neighbors—the residents of Vishram Society’s Tower A, a once respectable, now crumbling apartment building on whose site Shah’s luxury high-rise would be built—a generous buyout. They can’t believe their good fortune. Except, that is, for Masterji, who refuses to abandon the building he has long called home. As the demolition deadline looms, desires mount; neighbors become enemies, and acquaintances turn into conspirators who risk losing their humanity to score their payday.

Here is a richly told, suspense-fueled story of ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none: the new India as only Aravind Adiga could explore—and expose—it. Vivid, visceral, told with both humor and poignancy, Last Man in Tower is his most stunning work yet.

From the Hardcover edition.