The City of Devi

The Hindu Gods #3

by Manil Suri

Armed only with a pomegranate, Sarita ventures into the empty streets of Mumbai, on the eve of its threatened nuclear annihilation. She is looking for her physicist husband Karun, who has been missing for over a fortnight. She is soon joined on her quest by Jaz - cocky, handsome, Muslim, gay, and in search of his own lover. Together they traverse the surreal landscape of a dystopia rife with absurdity, and are inexorably drawn to the patron goddess Devi ma, the supposed saviour of the city. Groundbreaking and multilayered, The City of Devi is a fearlessly provocative tale of three individuals balancing on the sharp edge of fate.

Genres: Fiction, India, Romance, Contemporary, LGBT, Dystopia, Queer

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2013

About the author

Manil Suri is a distinguished mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Author of three acclaimed novels, including The Death of Vishnu, he is a former contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, for which he has written several widely read pieces on mathematics. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a lot going on in this novel set in India. We’re in a post-apocalypse time in the near future. India and Pakistan have nuked each other and even though, as the author tells us, “Nuclear bombs are like potato chips, nobody can stop at just one,” it may be that they did just that: possibly only Mumbai and Karachi were hit.

There’s also worldwide destruction going on: cyber-warfare (a cyber jihad) has exploded power plants, pipelines, airplanes and nuclear reactors in Canada and Europe. The West has cancelled all Muslim visas. (Sounds strangely familiar.) No one really knows what’s happening because communications are down worldwide: no internet, cellphones, TV or radio. Just some ham radio operators and dazed refugees spreading what may be fake news.



Within this chaos we have a young Hindu wife’s search for her missing husband. She is accompanied by a gay Moslem man who is acting as her protector. The narrative goes back and forth between the present and their reflections on the past. So we learn of the woman’s courtship in flashbacks. When she married, she was thirtyish; old for a woman’s first marriage in India. Her younger sister was married already but this woman took time to get two master’s degrees. Her MA in statistics comes in handy when she starts making spreadsheets about their marital progress to predict when the marriage will be fully consummated. At the time of the breakout of hostilities her overly-intellectual husband had been missing for weeks, so she did not flee the city with her family. The woman does not know it, but the gay man accompanying her is also looking for her husband. He is the husband’s former lover. Her husband is a gay man trying to go straight – thus the lack of consummation of the marriage so far.

And we learn a bit of what it is like to be a gay man in India; and more specifically, a gay Moslem man in a Hindu country. At various times the man is harassed for being gay; other times for being Moslem. When he and his Hindu lover get thrown out of rental apartments, sometimes it’s because they are gay, and sometimes it’s because they are in a Hindu-Moslem relationship. (Real-life Mumbai is about 20% Moslem; 80% Hindu, but given a city of 20 million people, that’s 4 million Moslems.)

The daily travels of the man and woman through the ravaged city are harrowing. The real-life Sealink Bridge that connects north and south Mumbai across the harbor has been destroyed and it fragmented the city into distinct Hindu and Moslem sections. The gay man has to pretend to be straight and Hindu in the Hindu sectior. In the other sector the woman has to pretend to be Moslem, wearing a burka made from a drape. Even the emergency shelters duplicate the elaborate caste structure of the country. Gangs rove the Hindu city stripping suspected Moslem men since the telltale sign is circumcision: Moslems are circumcised; Hindus are not.

Adding to the chaos, and helping cause it, was a fantastically popular Bollywood film about an Amazon-like, multi-armed Hindu goddess, Devi. That started a campaign to re-name Mumbai “The City of Devi.” A power-hungry general encountered an eight-year-old slum girl born with extra arms and set her up as the real-life goddess to be “idolized” in the true meaning of the word.

Worship of this gum-chewing, Coke-swilling girl, Devi-ma or Super Devi, caused a sensation. Since Devi is a Hindu goddess, this was not a big hit with the Moslem folks and perhaps led to the ultimate rift with Pakistan. The rogue general and his thugs becomes the makeshift leaders of the city after the nuclear strike.

So this is a good read with a lot to offer: nuclear war; a post-apocalypse setting; Hindu-Moslem relationships; gay lifestyles in a foreign county. On the other hand, I'll point out that while I gave it a 4, it's rated very low on GR: 3.3.

A former lover of the gay man offers the best advice in all this chaos:

“Before being an Indian, before being a Muslim, I’m a survivor – prepared to do whatever’s needed to stay alive. If you and your friend want to come through this war, I’d suggest you start doing the same.”

photo from fallinginlovewithbollywood.com

[Edited, spoilers hidden, shelves added 9/27/23]

[Aleksandr Voinov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good writer, some beautiful detail and colour. Veers off into the grotesque when the "Devi" appears, at which point it lost me a bit. Sarita, the main female character, is written with a lot of compassion, whereas I'm not too keen on the two guys. Especially didn't see the appeal of Karun, with whom both were obsessed.

Also not sure about the decision to kill Karun just before the ending and move the wife-husband-lover "triad" to wife-lover-child. It seemed too much like something done to serve the underlying message/symbolism than narrative necessity.

Not a book I'd re-read or keep, but happy to read more from this author.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The City of Devi’ is definitely one of the most enjoyable of my dystopia-keyword-library-catalogue-search finds. The blurb is quite coy about the plot, stating only that two people are searching for the person they love most in Mumbai, while the threat of nuclear annihilation hangs over the city. It’s actually much more fun than that might suggest. The two people who team up to survive chaotic Mumbai are the wife and ex-boyfriend of the same man. So it’s a bisexual love triangle and there’s a race against time to see whether the three will discover polyamory before nuclear war breaks out. I found the description of apocalyptic, collapsing Mumbai atmospheric and exciting. The split point of view was very effective and the flashbacks well-handled. The death of a main character near the end was disappointing, as I would have liked a happy ending, but it did seem fitting. Too conveniently comfortable an ending would have been incongruous with the background of nuclear war and global disaster, I suppose. The tone is fast-paced and witty, with a wistful, thoughtful edge. There’s something cinematic about it, in fact, that could translate well onto film. As an escapist adventure, however, it sometimes jolted me back into reality with passages about religious intolerance and terrorism. I would term it more of an apocalyptic novel than a dystopian one, personally, and a very good one. I liked the characters, found their emotional dilemmas moving, got carried along by the plot, and thought the settings vivid and compelling. I gather it’s the third in a series, yet it seems to work perfectly well as a stand alone novel.

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

When this book is good, it is very very good; and when it goes awry it's a train wreck (no pun intended). That being said, I did enjoy the read very much, fast paced, never dull, certainly entertaining. The plot got away from itself in the last third of the book and just really came apart. I'm not a fan of multi narrator books and while the technique succeeds on some levels here, I'm not convinced it was necessary; especially since one of the characters (Jaz) is by far a more compelling and well drawn character. I came away liking it more than not, and am eager to read Suri's other novels, but I can't help but feel this one really got away from him. There was a lot of wonderful potential here, and Jaz is a fabulous character and his and Karun's story is so wonderfully written, but placed amongst the dueling narrators AND the battling apocolypses AND the religious wars AND the political intrigue, it's just too cluttered a space for the novel to realize the greatness it promised in the beginning.

[Sneha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarita-Karun-Jaz. The triumvirate around whom the book revolves.

I've never been a huge fan of the love-triangle plot. I often find them highly contrived, far too predictable and lacking novelty. Having grown up in Bombay on a typical diet of Bollywood romcoms, I think can be blamed for my prejudice. That and those horrible bisections in Geometry class!

This isn't like any of those triangles though. It's refreshing, positively blatant in several aspects(loved the gay love-making scenes in the book, they make straight sex sound terribly tepid!)and paints a picture of Bombay in the future that is actually quite imaginable.

The book is set in Bombay, talks about Bombay but it isn't just about the best city in the world (excuse my eternal Bombay love!). Human relationships - the more complex the better - form the root of The City of Devi.

I haven't read Manil Suri's first two books in the trilogy, but since the stories aren't connected, it's fine to read them in any order.

[Jenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Perhaps I should rate this book with two stars instead of one, simply because I managed to make my way through to the end. Also, I came to like the two main characters, Sarita and Jaz. I agree with another reviewer who wrote that the story seemed disjointed with the characters in that it felt like two entirely different plots. I was borderline offended at the excessive and over-the-top homosexual love scenes. Also, too many events seemed way too coincidental to believe, even in a work of fiction. I read this for a book club and while it piqued my interest enough to learn more about religious/political tension in India, I can't say there was much else about it that appealed to me.

[Aqiil · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a beautiful book. The main protagonists - Jaz and Sarita - weave love-laced, honest accounts of their memories of Karun, the same man they both love, as they trudge through the desolate landscapes of a war-ridden India in his search. At first disjointed, their stories inevitably collide and they are forced to hold onto each other even after realising that they are rivals, each representing for Karun a different world, tearing him apart. Manil Suri's writing is clear and sometimes reaches poetic peaks that trot along as the novel unfurls, leading us to its painful, yet luminous end.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The City of Devi by Manil Suri concludes the “trilogy” that began with The Death of Vishnu and continued with The Age of Shiva. Though their only affinity for being a trilogy appears to be that they are about India and have a Hindu god’s name in the title, taken collectively, they are a highly entertaining read. And if you think you have read enough post-apocalyptic novels, Suri gives you a break with a “pre-apocalyptic” version. India and Pakistan are enacting hostilities towards each other, and in four days’ time, one or both countries are going to resort to mutual nuclear attack. Major cities in India, the novel’s setting, are thus in complete chaos: prices for everything have skyrocketed, and urban infrastructure—travel, communications, internet—is almost nonexistent and concomitant corruption is widespread.

The story is structured as alternating first-person narratives by Sarita and Jaz. Sarita, fairly recently married, wakes one day to find that her husband, Karun, has mysteriously and suddenly disappeared. She believes it has something to do with the fact that their marriage has not got off to a propitious start as a result of Karun’s lack of interest in sex and seeming impotence. But she had executed a remedial plan over the last year or so with encouraging results. Accordingly, with tenuous clues, she decides to set out to search for her husband.

Meanwhile, Jaz—self-styled “The Jazter”—also begins a search for his one-time lover. Jaz is dashing, adventurous, and resourceful—and he is also Muslim and gay. Early in the story, Sarita and Jaz’s path cross incidentally, when Sarita inventively helps Jaz in a tricky situation, and he suggests that they team up since their respective searches appear to be taking them in the same direction. And that direction is toward the Super Devi in Mumbai, who is heralded to save India and is somehow connected with Karun’s disappearance.

And so begins a mad dash, which at times resembles a caper, with just-in-time solutions, escapes, or rescues happening with perfect timing. Sarita’s suspicions about Jaz begin to achieve troubling levels, but not enough that she will ditch his company once and for all. The novel begins with Sarita hunting for a pomegranate (a vital item for her ultimate reunion with Karun), and her obsessive protection and preservation of the fruit is tantalizing at first…a little tiresome by the middle of the book…and is worn completely thin by the end.

Author Suri telegraphs that Sarita and Jaz will not only reach Mumbai, but become acquainted with the four-armed Mumbaidevi in the most comical, almost slapstick of ways. Suri also makes no great secret that Karun will be found. However, he does retain some final twists for the novel’s denouement, although Sarita’s ultimate decisions might disappoint some readers. But then, who is to define what one will or will not do for love?

One gets the impression that Suri had fun writing this novel. Sarita is credible, but she is nothing like Meera (The Age of Shiva), one of the author’s finer feminine creations. The Jazter, by comparison, is the novel’s entertainment. He is a morally bankrupt man with unashamedly fleshy appetites, which he feeds gratuitously whenever he can without apology. His self-perception at times is hilarious, right down to referring to himself in the third person—during his first-person narrative!

The City of Devi is a solid conclusion to the trilogy, though this reviewer considers it to be the lightweight of the three. In hindsight, the novels can be read completely out of sequence without loss of entertainment value, and the trilogy as a whole is a worthwhile read.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's the future, and much of India has disappeared through war. A bomb will be detonated in three days, so most of the people left are trying to flee. Chaos rules everywhere, especially with the tension between Hindus and Muslims. Everyone believes that the goddess Devi has appeared among them and that she's the only hope for saving the country. Sarita, a Hindu, is busy weaving her way through the country trying to find her husband, Karun, who mysteriously disappeared a few weeks earlier. Along the way, she's joined by a gay Muslim named Jaz, who has his own reasons for wanting to join her and isn't fully upfront about it.

A lot happens in this book, even though the summary above may not sound like it. The story's focus is mainly on the growing relationship between Sarita and Jaz, as well as the backstory involving Karun; their stories just happens to occur in this strange post-apocalyptic India instead of in the present day. I think perhaps the odd contrast between the close personal relationships and the crazy world they lived in made the book feel more disjointed than it might have otherwise been. Because the surroundings never seemed like they influenced or affected the people that the characters had become or the actions they were taking, the setting felt almost like a completely separate story.

The relationships between the main characters was definitely the strongest part of the book. Although I feel like they could have been made more sympathetic, Sarita and Jaz were definitely well thought out and their personal histories described in detail. I got a good sense of each of their personalities and the motivations behind many of their actions.

The other storyline, the one about India about to be destroyed and Devi being their only hope for survival, felt extremely chaotic and didn't seem to support or enhance the interpersonal storyline at all. As Sarita wandered through the country, she ended up meeting random people who sort of moved the plot forward because they swept her into their own journeys; it felt as if things just happened, then another event happened, and then another - without Sarita or Jaz doing anything themselves to move the plot forward. Their lack of involvement in this made the plot seem weak instead of an enhancement or something of importance. Also, because so much happened and so many minor characters made events transpire, I constantly got lost in the details. On multiple occasions, I grew confused because I didn't know how X or Y had occurred or how the plot had reached a certain point. Things often fell into place way too easily, just because Sarita and Jaz happened to be in the right spot at the right time.

The only tension throughout most of the book was the journey to find Karun (which I never truly cared about because he wasn't a sympathetic character or someone I'd "seen" much of) and the secrets being kept between Sarita and Jaz. This tension was not enough to hold my interest, and I think that's the main reason this book fell flat for me. So much went on in this book, but so little of it truly went together with other parts of the book or felt connected enough for the novel as a whole to be satisfying.

I feel like this book might have an audience in those looking for absurd apocalyptic novels with a heavy focus on action. Also, there is a heavy focus on gay relationships and sex throughout the book; as this is not everyone's cup of tea, I thought I should mention it.

I received a free advanced copy of this book through the First Reads program.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manil Suri has written what’s sure to be the best sex comedy of the year about nuclear war between India and Pakistan. But the Baltimore mathematics professor is used to having categories all to himself. After all, his spectacular debut, “The Death of Vishnu” (2001), is the best novel ever about a man dying in a stairwell. His new book, “The City of Devi,” completes a loose trilogy about the Hindu trinity. Even amid the wondrous variety of contemporary Indian fiction, Suri’s work stands apart, mingling comedy and death, eroticism and politics, godhood and Bollywood like no one else.

His three novels don’t need to be read together, and they’re likely to appeal to slightly different readers. “The City of Devi” is the broadest, a careening ride through modern Mumbai — on foot, train and even elephant. The story veers unpredictably from romantic to satirical to outrageous, as though multi-armed Durga herself had sat down at the computer.

Any CIA war planner will recognize the opening scene: Tensions between India and Pakistan, egged on by China, have unleashed an epidemic of sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims. Terrorists have exploded dirty bombs in major cities around the world. Reliable news and communication are the first victims amid rumors of massacres, incursions and reprisals. A leaked communique — real or fake? — outlines a Pakistani nuclear attack in four days. The 20 million people of Mumbai, the fourth-largest city on the planet, are in a rampaging panic, “mesmerized by our approaching doomsday.”

In a clever bit of cultural satire, Suri describes a popular adventure film called “Superdevi” that has helped precipitate this panic. A cross between “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Superman,” it portrays “a young girl from the Mumbai slums with the power to assume different avatars and Devi to fight crime.” Lady Gaga sings the soundtrack, McDonald’s gives away the branded action figures, and cynical politicians use the film to incite Hindus into a frenzy of bloodlust and invincibility. Globalization and technology will not, it seems, lead directly to a world of ecumenical peace and tolerance.

Suri splashes around the garish colors of this humanitarian disaster, but his real focus is on close, intimate detail. A young statistician named Sarita can’t find her husband, Karun. He left two weeks ago, supposedly for a scientific conference, and she hasn’t heard from him since. As she searches the pre-apocalyptic landscape, she recalls their tentative courtship and strange, awkward marriage. Her reports of bombings and drone strikes all around her are interrupted by memories of a romance between two adults who were hilariously ill-at-ease with their bodies.

But the more we hear about their marriage, the more troubled Karun sounds, his anxiety about sex suggesting some deeper issue. “We hugged more than we kissed,” Sarita says. “Our lovemaking remained restricted to above the waist.” He apologizes and weeps, pleads fatigue and promises better efforts later, but she’s driven to invent an elaborate star system to energize their tepid foreplay. (And she’s so devoted to the aphrodisiac power of pomegranates that I suspect a sponsorship from POM Wonderful.) As a statistician, she can’t resist the temptation to keep careful track of their slow progress toward consummation — which eludes them for almost two years. Readers, I suspect, will infer the nature of Karun’s resistance long before Sarita does.

As in his previous novel, “The Age of Shiva” (2008), Suri proves himself adept at inhabiting a female narrator. What’s surprising, though, is how shadowy Sarita’s closeted husband remains. Like a construct of dark matter, Karun generates tremendous attraction while remaining mostly unseen. He’s a sweet nerd who leads his wife along without ever giving us a sense of his inner life beyond his rather adolescent regrets and conflicted desires. “The passivity at the core of his being” makes him a particularly problematic centerpiece for a novel.

This certainly doesn’t stem from any prudishness on the author’s part. Alternate sections of the novel are narrated by a gay Muslim named Jaz. Predatory and witty, he recalls a life of unrestrained sexual conquest (and fabulous fashion sense). He’s a well-traveled sophisticate, “Jaz Bond dropping into the villain’s lair,” an operator who radiates “shifty wavelengths” — obscene, ironic and seductive. But as nuclear armageddon approaches and Hindu thugs take over Mumbai, Jaz finds himself on the wrong side of the new partition without a foreskin.

In one of the novel’s many wonderfully surreal scenes, Sarita and Jaz meet in an abandoned aquarium, where all the fish have been eaten by scavengers, except for one lonely shark. Supremely vulnerable apart, the Hindu wife and the Muslim homosexual decide to join forces to find her husband. From this point forward, a Bollywood “Wizard of Oz” vibe electrifies the peripatetic tale, as Sarita and Jaz make their way through an increasingly bizarre landscape, hoping to get answers from the goddess Devi.

We know from Kurt Vonnegut how scenes of carnage should blend with moments of comedy to sound bitter, but “The City of Devi” never dips toward cynicism, never loses its essential sweetness, no matter how cruel or kooky the action: Prisoners burned alive during religious celebrations! Disciples drinking their god’s urine! Despots ripped apart by angry mobs! Imperiled heroes escaping on elephants! Only a careful writer could choreograph these cliches — cliffhanger escapes and just-deflected bullets — without sinking into parody or bathos. Moments of melodrama risk jumping the rails (the train carrying Devi’s maidens literally does run off the tracks), but the whole story manages to keep hurtling along toward a surprisingly tender ending.

If the political resolution is ultimately a little too pat, the resolution of the novel’s romance is full of guileless charm. “We rise and fall under the empty sky,” Sarita says toward the end, “borne back toward the land by the frisking waves.” Would F. Scott Fitzgerald recognize his famous closing line transformed so boldly in this weird, complicated world?

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

When we crack open The City of Devi, we meet a woman who’s venturing across the city in search of her husband, who has mysteriously disappeared. As Sarita makes her way to where she thinks he is, we get flashbacks to when she and her husband first meet as well as a peculiar complication that hangs over their marriage. Later on her fate gets intertwined with another character whom we also follow around, both through the city and through flashbacks. This guy, Jaz, is also in search of his loved one as he thinks back to their relationship. Why did the husband disappear? How are Sarita and Jaz connected? While we don’t find out the answer to that first question for quite some time, we can guess the second one pretty easily, maybe a third of the way into the story.

These personal narratives unfurl against a tense backdrop as Mumbai is holding its collective breath, waiting to see if it will be hit by nuclear annilation amidst swirling rumors about whether (or when) the bombs will drop. Is this just some conspiracy set up by Hindu fundamentalists or Muslim fundamentalists…or even the Chinese? Nobody knows yet. Manil Suri takes various present day tensions and undercurrents of discontent and amps it up to 100 in this version of the world where cyber attacks are crippling large swathes of the globe and where on the subcontinent Hindus and Muslims are pitted against each other, state brinksmanship is going crazy, political bosses and mafias are flexing their muscles, and incarnations of goddesses are ostensibly coming to save the masses. It’s a disturbing vision because it’s an uncomfortably plausible one.

The jam-packed book doesn’t stop there, because we also have a love triangle; criss-crossing-the-city-chases; in-the-nick-of-time-escapes; coincidences galore Bollywood-style; as well as ruminations not just of the aforementioned religious divide, but also of identity, love, and loyalty in their different iterations. It was brave of Suri to throw together this melange. There’s a certain fearlessness about that and the way that he very matter-of-factly and in detail portrays the relationship between two gay men. So, I’ll tip my hat to Suri for that by adding on an extra star to the rating. But the thing is—all of this sounds better as an idea than it turned out to be in execution.

Despite how readers get into the heads and hearts of both Sarita and Jaz, their stories still felt flat, flat, flat. The dialogues seemed stilted and unrealistic and some of the writing was down and out pedestrian. Sorry to be pedestrian myself in using the b-word, but both of their stories were just plain *boring.* The narrative didn’t get off the ground enough for me to appreciate the slivers of vitality that did appear periodically; often times these instances of liveliness seemed more like accidental spills into this huge vat of boredom. It’s strange to accuse a book that tries to tackle multiple storylines and themes with quite a lot of action as lacking “life,” but that’s how little resonance it had on this reader at least.

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

An imminent nuclear strike by Pakistan has resulted in an eerily abandoned Mumbai, where gangs of marauding Hindu and Muslim youth clash, as a reflection of the broader religious and ethnic tensions of the day.

Against this volatile backdrop, newly-wed Sarita is searching for her missing husband, Karun, a physicist by training. She soon joins up with Ijaz (or the Jazster) on her quest -- unbeknown to her, however, they are both searching for, and in love with, the same man.

The initial synopses I read of this novel emphasised the apocalyptic and romantic plot elements, making no mention of the centrality of a gay Indian character. Maybe the publisher did not want to pigeonhole this as a 'gay novel'; however, this is likely to emerge as an important contribution to writing about marginalised characters in India.

Sarita's long opening reflection on her courtship and wooing of Karun is quite painstaking. Karun is such a reluctant and insipid character that I could not for the life of me see what the vivacious and intelligent Sarita could hope to achieve with such a union. But then, I suppose, that is precisely the point -- women like Sarita seldom have the luxury of choice.

The book only really picks up about a third of the way through, with the introduction of the Jazster, and his own far livelier and spicier account of his seduction of the enigmatic Karun. Manil Suri gives real insight into what it means to be gay in a matriarchal society like India, riven by class, religious and ethnic divides to boot. What is far more upsetting to the status quo even than him being gay is the fact that the Jazster, a respectable Muslim, is involved with a Hindu. Eish!

Other colourful characters that the duo bump into along their journey of self-discovery include Rahmin, the Jazster's mascara-besotted cousin; Bhim, an unusually reflective gangster heavy; and Devi ma, a street urchin born with extra arm stumps plucked from obscurity into the religious limelight.

While much lighter in tone than The Death of Vishnu, for example, and more openly a satire, Manil Suri nevertheless deals with some very profound issues about love, identity and gender and class biases.

Enjoyable and well-written, and by turns extremely funny and achingly sad, it builds towards a suitably apocalyptic ending, given its subject matter.

[judy-b. judy-b. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more. Just phoning it is, Manil Suri can write a four-star novel, and this was definitely more than a wrote performance, but just not up to the artistry of his first book, The Death of Vishnu.

The story takes place in a Mumbai/Bombay on the verge of being nuked by Pakistan. The narration is shared by two characters navigating the insanity: Sarita, who is searching for her disappeared husband, and Jaz, who latches onto Sariita and tags along.

It is vividly clear that Suri likes and understands Jaz much much better. His personality comes through the page, most strikingly in his observations about himself. Sarita feels almost like a cypher, and that isn't fair. She is shy and self-effacing, but a masterful writer such as Suri have given her more inner eloquence.

[S. K. Pentecost · Rating 3 out of 5]

Characters that are hard to love, or even root for, in an exotic locale, experiencing a sociopolitical environment interesting to me because of my lack of exposure to it. (Basically all I know about India I learned from rapey NPR reports and one or the other Best Exotic Marigold Hotels.)

The author tried manfully to cast aspersions equitably at both Hindus and Muslims, but it is easy to see where his baseline prejudices fall. (I can't decide if that means he can't help but hate on the other denomination, or if he is still angry at his own denomination for not being able to include him.)

Mix all this with an over reliance on whatever gods he can find in the machine and some hot bonobo type sex as the 3 main characters try to fit into each other and each others' lives.

[faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

the joy of reading a novel again! speed reading in 4 days to meet the library deadline~

"i think of all the bodies in motion, creating their own trajectories."

this book became more enjoyable after i started reading it from a broadly satirical perspective (was pretty slow on picking up on that, ngl - maybe a reflection of how much the world is dying? this book was written in 2013 but the depictions, while exaggerated, of religious divide and violence terrifyingly echoes the rise of hindu nationalism in india until today, stoked by the dominant political party).

it's written in the two perspectives of sarisa and jaz, which i felt quite effective - their voices were distinct, and the fact that the perspective only switched after quite a long while, with more frequent change at the end, allowed me to get acquainted with them individually. jaz's voice certainly does make sarisa's sound a lot flatter though because of the dramatism of his character - but i can't decide if him referring to himself in third person is cringey or funny. there are a number of descriptions of sex but majority didn't feel particularly erotic (the straight sex was a bit painstaking if anything, the gay sex wilder but not in detail). honestly the real question i kept hving is why did everyone love karun so much? (or maybe that's the point - that that's just how desire and love works - it just happens, and has nothing to do with the person, but rather the connection.) overall, an enjoyable and well written read, id say good for speed-read but perhaps also for more in depth thought and slow savouring :)

"perhaps this is the place to stop. and acknowledge these myriad paths along which we strive [...] the bruised earth hurtles along, hoping to survive."

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel takes place in and around Mumbai (called Bombay by some characters) in the very near future. The world has gone awry. Computer viruses rampant, climate change in full swing and India and Pakistan are at war. Meanwhile Mumbai (or Bombay) are in the throes of sectarian violence.

Sarita and Jaz (one Hindu, the other Muslim, one female, one male) are in love with the same man. He disappears and Sarita tries to find him. Jaz follows her, although he does not let her know who he really is. The novel is told from two POVs: Jaz and Sarita. For the most part this works.

There are far too many coincidences in the book and the ending is too pat in the extreme. It is superficial, but fun (if apocalyptic novels can ever said to be fun). I had a good time reading it, but I doubt if I will remember it in a couple of months.

3.5, but since it is closer to 3.4 than 3.6, rounded down.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won The City of Devi as part of a firstreads giveaway. The story takes place during a countdown to doomsday in India. Leaks from Pakistan indicate a nuclear attack on India will take place in a matter of days. While the general populace is fleeing cities, taking refuge in basements, and seeking solace in a questionable appearance by the goddess Devi, Sarita is desperately trying to procure a pomegranate. It might seem silly at first, but our heroine seeks it as a sort of tribute to/stand-in for her beloved husband, Karun, who disappeared shortly before the bomb threat was announced. She finally finds the fruit, and shortly thereafter is joined by the Muslim Ijaz.

Author Manil Suri structures his protagonists around the Hindu trinity of Shiva, Vishnu, and Devi (an alteration from some traditions), this is also the structure he chooses for the trinity he has created (I have not read the other books, and did not find that to be a problem at all, but would like to check out The Death of Vishnu and The Age of Shiva. I'm not super familiar with the HIndu pantheon, but I found the introduction of theology interesting, and undistracting from the main story of the novel. Absurd twists kept me reading until the end, the introduction to the "goddess" Devi was a favorite scene. The evolving, mistrustful interactions between Sarita and Ijaz, and the ways in which their different faiths color their interactions in the deeply divided neighborhoods of Mumbai. It's this hint of realism, a model of the tension which exists already between Pakistan and India, as well as the very real emotions of Sarita and Ijaz (and to a lesser extent, Karun) that carries this novel, which in many scenes would rival a Bollywood counterpart.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A turbulent, vivid dystopia set in a future India, seen through the eyes of two characters - Sarita and Jaz - linked by a desperate search for their lost loves in the ruins and chaos of Mumbai, as nuclear apocalypse threatens, violent Hindu and Muslim gangs roam the streets, and the rest of the world is cut off by malicious computer viruses that have destroyed global communications.

Atmospheric, sensual and darkly funny, the tale veers both between past and present and the two protaganists to address subjects as varied as ancient Hindu mythology and its surprising repercussions in the present; the power of Bollywood; the religious and ethnic divides that exists beneath the surface of modern India; and the funny, flawed and tragic misunderstandings that persist between Sarita, Jaz and Karun and power the tale along.

Pomegranates, lost and then found again, are a recurring theme, as are disguises and masks and whether they hide or reveal our true identity; and above all, the push-pull of whether to follow your true desires or try to conform to society's mores.

Often, in a story with as wide a canvas as this, it is the central characters that take up all your attention, but here the minor characters are so vividly drawn that they too feel important – Guddi, the village girl turned devotee of the goddess Devi ma, who possesses an unexpectedly handy way with elephants; Rahim, Jaz's cousin, who has useful underground connections and Sequeira, a benevolent club owner who keeps the party going even in the teeth of destruction – all rich, rounded characters who breathe great vitality into this rollercoaster ride of a novel.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

When we think about the end of world as we know it, do India and Pakistan feature as the places that will start it all? We should: they both have nuclear capabilities. The City of Devi is set in a world where a movie, Superdevi, has inflamed passions to such an extreme that Pakistan has declared that they will bomb Mumbai. The Muslims and Hindus are fighting it out, bombs are exploding in cities far away from India and chaos is reigning.

In the midst of this is Sarita, relatively newly married to Karum, an astrophysicist. Their marriage is... not intimate, and Sarita is trying to fix that but one day Karum essentially disappears. Rather than flee Mumbai (as her family has done), she stays, seeking him and trying to bring him a pomegranate to remind him of their love. On the way she survives a bomb scare, a train bombing and meeting Jaz, a Muslim who is also (we learn, although Sarita doesn't know until later) seeking the love of his life - Karum.

What separates this from the run-of-the-mill love triangle with bisexual twist is the setting: an apocalyptic Mumbai filled with sectarian violence and passions. The intricacies of the Muslim/Hindu hatred coupled with the Devi story (and various Devi incarnations) add to the sense that this isn't just your usual story.

ARC provided by publisher.

[Clarissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was nicely surprised by much in this story. The author did a nice job of interweaving religious, economic, political and sexual themes. I especially liked the open, straightforward narrative of Jaz's story. And despite the very different personalities between Surita and Jaz, I ended up liking them both; not an easy task for an author.

I think the one weakest point was a lack of needed development in the character of Karun, the object of desire for both of the main characters. I found it hard to imagine why the two main characters, Surita and Jaz, were so enamoured of him, so motivated to find him in such inhospitable circumstances. Perhaps this is somewhat related to the overall Bollywood influences; the supposed seriousness of the apocalyptic setting was a bit dissonant with nature of the romance. I think more development of Karun's story would have helped round out the romantic motivation.

Audiobook Review:
Read by Vikas Adam and Priya Ayyar, Blackstone Audio
This is the second book I've listened to in the last few months that was set in a foreign country, and that corresponding native readers. I'm getting very addicted to audiobooks with great accents. A very good reading by both narrators. That being said, I did find Ms. Ayyar's reading to be paced a bit too slowly, almost languorous, enough to be distracting.

[Vinod Peris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The backdrop for the book is that India and Pakistan are at war and are threatening to annhilate each other. There's a looming threat of nuclear bombs being dropped on Mumbai and the city is in a state of chaos. The basic premise of a post apocalyptic India does not appeal to me and the first 100 pages of the book are dark and desolate. I did not care for the gory and brutal descriptions of the terror and mayhem in Mumbai.

The book opens with Sarita looking for her husband, Karun who has disappeared amidst all the chaos that surrounds her. Sarita tells the story of how she met Karun and eventually married him. The general theme is one of a typical Indian woman who reveres and almost worships her husband regardless of the state of her marriage. There is some mystery about their relationship, but otherwise the first 100 pages or so are not much to write home about.

The second part of the book picks up the pace and is narrated by a interesting character, Ijaz, who prefers to be called Jaz. His style of narration is much more lively and entertaining. I don't want to reveal more of the plot and will stop here. Rest assured that the book is much more than the war between India and Pakistan. Pick up the book and read it and I am sure it will leave an impression on you.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting, quite odd. For the most part the book switches between sections of the past--Sarita and Jaz each meeting and falling in love with Karun--and the present--Sarita and Jaz making their way from southern Mumbai to Juhu beach and eventually to Diu together looking for Karun. I liked being in these characters' heads, even if Jaz was kind of an immature jerk at times and Sarita was a bit naive. Most of the story flowed quite well, and as I've mentioned, it was even injected with humor at times--elephants, marmite, pomegranates.
The last chapter had a tendency to drag a bit.
I also wasn't sure that Karun needed to die. Maybe I've been reading too many books with sad endings lately and I wanted to see something different. Maybe I just thought the scene on the beach in the hut was a perfect ending in and of itself, without the explanations of which cities have been blown up and which haven't, the definite pregnancy, Diu, or the death. I think I'd've been happier to end on a note of odd bisexual polyamorous sex on a beach.

[Narendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magical realism with a "gay" touch. The background of nuclear, terrorism tinged, war on a global scale allows Suri to explore the depths of atrocious human behavior in society at large. Juxtaposed is a tender love story between two nerds, Sarita and Karin, who Suri develops into wholesome characters. To add a surprising twist we learn later that Karun is bisexual. Suri's writing seems to pick up a notch when he describes Karun's lover Jaz and their romance. It is refreshing to see homosexuality in India treated realistically (typically it tends to be hush hush).
The book is well written, fantastically structured to weave disparate events and characters into a cohesive tale, fast paced and a fun read. It is only at the end of the book that I learned Suri is gay. Looks like he cannot resist in indulging in some typical stereotypes, calling all South Indians "Tamils" and "Darkies". Wonder how far he would get using "Darkies" in the American context.

[Kirat Kaur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do agree with the critique that Manil Suri was over-reaching with this book and trying to cover too much ground, but i still think it was well worth the read. Suri painted a lot of really interesting (and scary!) scenarios in imagining the end-game that is nuclear politics on the subcontinent (and elsewhere). The personal stories of the triumvirate within the broader context are probably the strongest elements of the book, particularly the light that Jaz sheds on gay subcultures in Delhi and Bombay. I liked that Sarita wasn't just a stock character; Suri did seem to have made some effort to develop her fully. I was also quite taken with the concept of the Vishnu-Shiva-Devi triumvirate, where Devi supplants Brahma as the creator, as i've never come across this (quite compelling) idea before. This is probably the first modern work of speculative fiction i've read, and it certainly held my attention.

[Elaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book in the airport on this book enticed by the words, "apocalypse" and "romance." I was excited for a sort of trashy, exciting book - the equivalent of watching a favorite reality TV show with a glass of wine.

I was soon corrected.

This book ensconces prevalent social inequities, yet illustrates such with an entrancing story. I cannot pretend I was not surprised that the true love story is between two men, but I also cannot pretend that this love story did not touch me and ensure my interest wholeheartedly. And this story is so much more than a simple love story. It is about the triad of life. The masks we all wear to protect ourselves.

This book is sane yet satirical. Bold yet subtle. It is a comedy and a tragedy.

[Daman Sahni · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was chuffed to find a signed copy of Manil Suri's book at the Jaipur Literary Festival. Chuffed because his first was actually good, his second was not so good but I trusted him to get his groove back with the last of his triumvirate.

I am surprised by the raving jacket cover endorsements. This is a boring book. There is no character development. The story has no coherence. It is a bad book. Very bad book. When I begin to look at how many pages I have left to finish a book ( not in a good way) while into ten pages of a book, is bad.

Manil Suri, you need to re-visit your days of "vishu" - this is the last book from you that I spend money on.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because it won Best Fiction in the Bisexual Book Awards last year. That aspect of the story was sympathetically presented, and provided intriguing insights for me anyway - even if some of the descriptions were "purple," as I've seen other reviewers describe them. I give the novel three stars instead of just two because of this early story line, which I would have liked to see more of - but I really couldn't continue to like the book after the "disaster" started and the gore and violence kicked in. It was just too raw for me, personally. I did finish it, because it was definitely a page-turner, but I was relieved when it was over.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book blurb describes it as comedic. I beg to differ. It was a difficult book to read. It describes a world that has broken down with Pakistan and India at war and other developing countries dealing with missile attacks and the lawlessness that results. I found the unconventional "love triangle" strained credibility at times.

I really enjoyed Manil Suri's Death of Vishnu and like that book, Mumbai is one of the main characters. This book however did not capture the beauty, vibrancy and cosmopolitan nature of Mumbai.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manil Suri does a wonderful job alternating between narrators in his novel The City of Devi. Suri does an amazing job with character development. He describes their lives in such a descriptive way, their desires are revealed in such a raw and vulnerable manner.

Suri's writing is intriguing, provocative and extremely descriptive. He did an outstanding job allowing the reader to have clear insight into human behavior. The City of Devi is unique and is well worth exploring, you will be pleasantly surprised by Suri's unique writing style.

[Mathis Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

What drew me to this novel was the mysterious cover. It's pretty cool. Now, the story was okay. It was abit foolish at times, but entertaining nonetheless.It's not everyday that I read a LGBT story set in India. Very interesting. But I don't think this story is for everybody. Check out full review on my blog https://mattsbookbites.wordpress.com/