When All The Lights Are Stripped Away

by Sunil Nair

When a letter arrives from his dying father, the life Anil has carefully constructed in the city shatters. He leaves his friends, his work as a cartoonist and a painter of movie posters, and even his pregnant girlfriend to journey home to the town he ran away from three years earlier after his mother died. There, in the short time left, he attempts to uncover his father's ambitious political plans for him and who the enigmatic man is. He stumbles upon his mother's secret collection of paintings and is forced to re-evaluate her art and what she taught him as a boy. All these discoveries pull him back to the life he had wanted to leave behind. Through vibrant characters and with precise, lyrical prose, the novel explores the universal themes of legacy and the complexity of inheritance against a backdrop of political conflict in contemporary Malaysia.

Genres: Fiction

283 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

Sunil Nair was born in Malaysia. He moved to the United States to obtain his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees. After two years as a post-doctoral fellow in Trieste, Italy, he began a new career in academic publishing in London. He still lives there with his wife and is now a publisher. When All the Lights Are Stripped Away is his first novel.

Reviews

[Lihsian · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review of the book in The Star daily: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story...

[Moushine Zahr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is about the coming of age of a Malaysian teenager of Indian origins, son of a wealthy attorney. Upon the death of his mother, who's been close to his entire life, the teenager leaves his native city to Kuala Lumpur on his own without the help of his father trying to search for himself, open up to others and finding his life. 3 years passed, his father asks him to return home before his death from illness. (3 years gone away is not enough for the story to be 100% convincing) The adult son returns findings something have changed while other stay the same and searching for clues about his parents, himself and his future.

The novel is well written. The intrigue continues from beguinning to end. However, I sensed that some of the characters are not fully developed and the people are described superficially. The novel tries to describe the life of a teenager growing up to an adult, the Malaysian Indian community, and modern life in KL City.

I liked this novel for all above reasons, but it didn't go too deep enough to make it great. The book was only 283 pages.

[Lesley Lodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gives a very vivid feel for life in Malaya and for the ever looming presence of political conflict there (even when the protagonist thinks he can avoid it). At first I thought the plot was too rambling - but then I "got" it - life in Malaya, as portrayed in this book, can be somewhat chaotic despite one's plans.