Night Theater

by Vikram Paralkar

A surgeon working in a dilapidated clinic in the hinterland is visited in the dead of night by a family – a man, his pregnant wife and their eight-year-old son. Victims of a senseless attack, they reveal to the surgeon wounds that they could not possibly have survived. In a narrative that blends medicine and metaphysics, the surgeon is then issued a preposterous to mend the wounds of the dead before sunrise so that the family can return to life. But this is not the only challenge laid before him, and it is only as the night unfolds and morning dawns that the surgeon realizes just how intricately his future is tied to that of the dead. Weaving surgical detail with philosophy and absurdism, The Wounds of the Dead is a novel that’s at once grittily realistic and magically unreal, and which will remain with you long after you have read the final page.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Horror, India, Audiobook, Literary Fiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2017

About the author

Born and raised in Mumbai, Vikram Paralkar lives in the United States and is a hematologist-oncologist and scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of two novels: 'The Afflictions' and 'The Wounds of the Dead.'

Reviews

[Annet · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mother always says there are things in this world that no one can explain...
What a dark, unreal, weird and fascinating story this is. I can't say I liked it, I mean, it is not a nice story, but it utterly fascinated me. Exceptional. Some story. A weird story about a small poor clinic somewhere in India, led by a talented but poor doctor 'with a history'. One day a man and his wife and son enter the clinic. They are officially dead, but sent back from the afterlife by an angel. They died in real life being assaulted and robed. In order to enter into real life again due to the 'courtesy of the angel', the doctor needs to operate them. When the day breaks, they will regain life and the wounds need to be controlled...otherwise they will die. Well... weird story isn't it. And it touches on a lot of topics, religion, what does afterlife look like, are there angels, is there a God, how do you live your life, what are your dilemmas, etc.
Utterly fascinating. I did not care much for the operating scenes I have to say, but the rest of the story, yes, yes, recommended. But you are in for a dark ride I warn you!

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Night Theater exposes everything we humans tell ourselves, about what it means to lead a good life, as meaningless.

And after that, the novel takes every article of faith that we humans like to believe, about the dignity of humanity, and the possibility of redemption, and smashes it to bits.

And then, miraculously, after every virtue is exposed as meaningless, and every hope is smashed to bits, the novel rises up from the ashes, phoenix-like, and becomes a story that's mythic, and true, and powerful. It is honestly one of the most uplifting and life-affirming books I've ever read.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, with its clever title, has a lot going for it. A compelling premise (big city surgeon in rural India gets visited by a family of "walking dead" - corpses who were murdered and sent back to Earth by an angel for a second chance at life) and an authenticity brought about by the fact that the author himself is a research physician (so the many nighttime surgeries feel like the real deal).

It's also simply written, and relatively short - so you can whip through this baby in no time flat.

What I like about this story - which has a fable aura to it, what with the magical realism threaded through its soul - is that it is equal parts spiritual to physical. We find ourselves grappling with the afterlife and an absentee god, just as much as we are looking into a damaged chest cavity and all the tools needed for the repair. And Paralkar does this very well - though sometimes I found the lengthy surgical scenes took me out of the story more than I would have liked.

Perhaps though, it's because of the fable-esque nature of this book that I felt myself at arm's length. I found myself propelled by a morbid curiosity of what would happen when the sun rose the next morning. Would the corpses survive? Would they be granted this second chance at life, and if so, how would that look? But I didn't really know, or connect with the characters on a deeper level. Maybe I wasn't meant to. Maybe this book is meant to be read from the heavens, or from a seat in the nosebleeds in a large theatre - distance is sometimes needed to see the big picture.

I really don't know. But if I'm going to be a spectator, I prefer the front row, myself.

3.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Catapult publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Marchpane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saramago meets E.R.

In a tiny Indian village, a surgeon is visited by a murdered family who insist that he repair their fatal wounds by sun-up, so they can be resurrected. Night Theatre is a very different kind of ghost story.

This Saramago-esque fable is very contained: the only setting is the tiny clinic, the timeframe just a single night, and the (unnamed) characters limited to the doctor, his assistant and her husband, the murdered family of three and one corrupt government official whose sudden appearance nearly derails everything. It’s almost a stage play in book form.

Night Theatre was originally published in India under the title “The Wounds of the Dead”. The family’s wounds are not just physical. They are traumatised by the acts of violence that killed them and bewildered by the afterlife they’ve glimpsed. It’s not what they expected to say the least, and they’d rather return to the land of the living.

The surgeon is working to a deadline: he must perform three complicated surgeries by sunrise. If he fails to repair their fatal wounds, his patients will bleed to death all over again. The clock is ticking which makes for a suspenseful read. Paralkar is an M.D. and the surgical scenes are written in lurid detail – presumably medically accurate, apart from the patients being dead, although I’m not qualified to judge.

Over the course of the night, we discover why this skilled surgeon has been relegated to a thankless post in the middle of nowhere, and what really happened to the ghost family. The book touches on religious faith, inequality, corruption and more, without making any obvious point. The characters are lightly sketched, but that suits the fable/dream tone. 3.5 stars.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a lot of books that are so formulaic that I know, with a fair amount of certainty, exactly what’s going to happen. The ending isn’t so much a conclusion as a settling of accounts, a wrapping up and cleaning up after the party. The hero wins, the bad guy dies or goes to jail, the boy gets the girl, they all live happily ever after, etc. And that’s not necessarily bad, it may be fun to read, the author may have a unique style that is intriguing or colorful characters and dialogue that draws you in. It’s a fun roller coaster ride, but you’ve ridden these before and when the ride is over, you come to a stop and get out. But original? No.

So, it is refreshingly enjoyable to read a book that is so original that you really have no idea how it will end and turn each page with a sense of discovery and wonder.

Vikram Paralkar’s 2017 novel Night Theater is such a pleasantly original work.

A cynical surgeon in a rural village has left his thriving urban practice following a scandal and now provides healthcare to the poor residents in an underfunded government clinic. His bitterness seeps into the quality of the care he provides.

One night a young family enters the clinic as they are closing and reveals to him that they were murdered and have been given a second chance at life – he must repair their wounds because at dawn their bodies will fill again with blood and life and without his needed attention, they will die a second time.

What follows is a journey through existential questions of morality, mortality, life, death, the afterlife, justice and redemption. Paralkar’s skilled use of magical realism and including elements of horror make this an extraordinarily good book.

Recommended.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A doctor, who is the sole practitioner in a struggling rural clinic in India, is faced with three murder victims who claim that they can be restored to life if the doctor treats their wounds by the next morning. It turns out that the doctor doesn’t exactly know all of the rules of this resurrection.

I don’t know quite what to make if this book, but it was well-written, unique and certainly held my interest. It was in turns a satire of a corrupt medical system, a fable and a philosophical exploration of the afterlife and the power of belief. The author is a doctor and he inserted a few too many surgical details for my taste but I would read more by him.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This got rave reviews from 7 authors whose books I have not read. One of them, Jeet Thayil, was Booker Prize shortlisted (Narcopolis). And three reviews from book reviewers I assume.

The short novel (208 pp) is about a surgeon in a rural village in India, who oftentimes has to use his own money to buy supplies and such for his clinic. He used to work in a fancy-schmantzy hospital in a big city but all that changed due to circumstances that were a bit cloudy to me...whether he screwed up on a case which cost a life or whether it was due to the machinations of a fellow surgeon who had it out for him.

Anyway, one night three people, a mother and father and their young son, come to his clinic looking half dead…well that’s because they are—dead. 😲 They got knifed during a robbery and made it to the nether world but met an angel who allowed them to come back to life …and if they could get their wounds healed they could live again, provided they not leave the boundaries of the village, but if villagers knew they were living amongst zombies there’d be all sorts of hell to pay and by the way the dead women was pregnant and so the doctor delivered her stillborn baby but maybe at the crack of dawn the stillborn baby would be resurrected….
…or something like that.

The inner front cover calls this a “fabulist novel” …I have nothing against fantastical novels/stories, but this was written, to my mind, with no ta lot of imagination…I failed to see what point the author was trying to make when all was said and done, and near the latter part of the book I was speed-reading just to get it over with.

I liked the graphic on the front cover…I have no idea what it was, but the colors were nice. 😐

Reviews:
• https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/799278...
• http://www.washingtonindependentrevie...
• https://anotherchicagomagazine.net/20...
• https://vol1brooklyn.com/2020/03/13/t...

I was going to give this 1 star because when I realized how bad it was (from my perspective) it got me ticked off, but it deserves more than 1 star, not sure I could give it 2 solid stars, so I will give it 1.6 stars, and by my fuzzy math it gets bumped up to 2 stars. 😉

[K.J. Charles]

Weird, horrible, brilliant, compelling. A despairing surgeon in a dilapidated village clinic is visited by a dead family who have been promised they will live again at dawn--but the wounds of their murders have to be repaired first. Subsequent events mix clinical ghastliness with the mundane horror of a deeply corrupt system mired in bribery, hopelessness, poverty, moral exhaustion and failures of humanity. Fable-like in the telling--nobody has a name, they are the surgeon, the official, the boy--but grounded with precise detail, and just enough hope to make it unbearable because, the surgeon and the dead show us, if you could just stop hoping and give up then that would be a form of relief. Except the ending then makes you think again about all the above. Thought-provoking topics along with a compelling plot, superb writing. Excellent stuff.

[Ends of the Word · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a run-down clinic at the outskirts of a rural Indian village, a once-successful surgeon is bringing what remains of his career to an unassuming end. Saheb, as the villagers respectfully call him, tries to do his job decently, despite lack of facilities, a sorely limited budget, stifling bureaucracy and institutionalised corruption. As for assistance, he must make do with an untrained pharmacist and her handyman husband. But he is soon to face his biggest challenge yet. One night, a young family – father, pregnant mother and infant son – present themselves at the clinic, suffering from horrific injuries inflicted by a band of bandits. It was a savage attack and no one could possibly survive the wounds they show the doctor. In fact, the would-be patients are dead, allowed to return to Earth by a friendly official of the afterlife. There’s one problem though – at dawn, blood will once again course through their veins. In the course of one long night, the doctor must successfully complete three complex surgeries, not to save the living, but to resurrect the dead.

The dead tend to haunt ghost stories and horror fiction. Vikram Paralkar’s Night Theatre (originally published in India as The Wounds of the Dead) is neither of the two. Its horrors, if any, lie in the detailed surgical descriptions (Paralkar is a hematologist-oncologist and, presumably, speaks from experience) and in the quasi-existential sense of futility instilled by the evident moral failure of society. If pressed to classify the novel, I would describe it as a work of magical realism. Indeed, despite its fantastical premise, it feels strangely plausible, its plot driven forward by an inherent logic. By a happy irony, Paralkar manages to use a surreal tale as a vehicle for social critique. At the same time, the otherworldly elements provide a springboard for ruminations about death and the meaning of life.

I must say that the book’s blurb intrigued me, but little did I expect to discover a little literary gem. By turns tragic, darkly comic and ultimately moving, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and can’t recommend it enough.

[Nadine in California · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book felt more like a parable than a novel, although the plot and the pacing made it as propulsive as any good mystery novel. I think the publisher blurb doesn't do the reader any favors by revealing so much of the plot - I went in knowing only that it was vaguely something about a doctor visited by 'ghosts', so much of the story came as a surprise. There is quite a bit of surgical detail, but to my surprise it was fascinating, not disturbing - no messy bleeding with these patients! In such a short book there's not a lot of room for character description, but they all came alive for me (even the dead ones). Liked the ending very much. If this author is as good a doctor as he is a writer, his patients should be happy. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A renowned surgeon falls from grace and struggles to run a low-income clinic at the edge of a city, then one night three visitors come and need his help to come back to live. Interesting mix of medical work-life, gods of India, and a peculiar afterlife, all with a tale that unfolds gradually as the story moves along. The author is a doctor and it shows. So much of the book is revealed as you read, so I can't say a lot.

I had a copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley and it came out January 14, 2020.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Night Theater is one of those reads that won't let you go. It leaves you with far more questions coming out than you had going in, and that is one of its real strengths. Nothing in this story is simple, despite how straightforward the narrative feels.

The premise is relatively straightforward, if fantastic. A cynical physician in a rural clinic in India is confronted with three dead people who claim they will be able to live again if he repairs their wounds before the sun rises. From that point, things spin out with increasing complexity.

I don't want to say too much about this title for fear of interfering with the process of reading it—but I do strongly recommend that readers grab the opportunity to live through that night with the physician at the story's center.

[Ann Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one intense and claustrophobic book, but I loved every second of it.

We meet a doctor in a rural town in India. He is used to far better conditions than the ones he is currently working under, his clinic lacking most modern medical equipment and sometimes necessary drugs. He does what he can for the villagers, but not without some degree of resentment. This isn't the place he wants to be, nor feels he should be. After sunset one night a family shows up at his clinic, asking him to operate on them. They seem perfectly healthy, but their clothes are hiding fatal wounds. The three members of the small family, four if the unborn baby is included, died after being violently stabbed. In the afterlife, an angel gives them a choice of returning to the land of the living, but he can't heal their wounds, he can only keep them alive for one night in an artificial way. A surgeon will have to fix the damage to their bodies before sunrise if they are to remain alive. Suddenly, the doctor is in a position of having to raise the dead instead of healing the living.

Although we are presented with a plot that includes the afterlife, angels and supernatural occurrences, this isn't a particularly religious novel. It is more philosophical. This situation naturally brings with it a lot of questions and fears. The superstitious girl working for the doctor wonders if God will punish them for going against him, for playing God with these people's lives. The doctor struggles with the expectation that he'll be able to save the family and with the potentially life changing and devastating consequences for him and the others involved if he fails to save them. They see him as a brilliant doctor and a great man, unselfish, devoted to saving lives no matter the cost. He knows he is neither, though he would, by any normal standard, be considered a good doctor and a good man. Nothing in this book is simple and straightforward, nothing is black and white. Should he save them? Can he save them? Can he live with the consequences of his own limitations?

The reason I found the book claustrophobic is that everything that happens takes place in the clinic, during one night. In addition to operating on each member of the family, the doctor has to avoid anyone finding out about what's happening, which proves difficult, as both an annoying village drunkard and a corrupt clinic official pays a visit during the night, leaving the family and the girl helping him to hide. The family themselves are told that if they survive they can never leave the borders of the village, and the doctor is lacking so much in order to help them survive, not to mention cope with pain as they come alive after sunrise, that the village seems like a place cut off from the world at large, too small to be chosen for this task. And with every hour that passes, the doctor's lack of sleep becomes more and more unbearable..

The descriptions of wounds and of the operations are detailed and realistic, making the novel very gritty. The themes of murder, corruption, the feeling of hopelessness makes it even more so. Though slow paced, the story is incredibly gripping, both because of the tension when unwanted visitors show up, the level of difficulty of the operations and the wonder at what the world is like if a dead family can come back to life. I have to agree with everyone who has written that the story feels very realistic, despite the unrealistic premise of the book. I listened to the audio version and the reader did a great job. He was very engaging, he gave different characters different voices and you could feel the exasperation and the exhaustion through his voice. I got completely lost in this story and just loved everything about it.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matters of life and death...

A former surgeon now acts as a general doctor in a small run-down clinic serving a population of rural villagers. His supplies are late when they come at all, his overseer is bullying and corrupt, and his only assistants are a young unqualified woman whom he has taught to act as his pharmacist, and her husband, who does all the handyman tasks around the clinic. Frustrated with the way his life has turned out, the surgeon is in a near perpetual state of disappointment and ill-temper. Then, one night after a long day when he has been giving all the local children their polio vaccinations, he is approached by three very strange patients, each with terrible wounds. They are a husband, wife and young son who were attacked in the street, robbed, stabbed and left to die. Which indeed they did. Now they have been given the chance to return from the afterlife, but before they come alive at dawn the next day, they must have their wounds treated or they will die again...

No, this isn’t some kind of zombie horror story. It’s a beautifully written fable which, while it can be read on one level simply as a unique and interesting story, has layer upon layer of depth, dealing with the big questions of life, death, faith, and the place of medicine in all of these.

None of the characters have names, being known rather as their occupation – the surgeon, the pharmacist, etc. The first hurdle is for the living characters to come to terms with the shock of meeting the dead ones, and to decide whether they should help them. How do they know whether the power that has offered them the chance to live again is on the side of good? The whole question of the unknowableness of God’s plan and of the place of faith in determining how to act underlies every decision the characters are forced to make. The pharmacist is devout, the surgeon is not, but they each have to answer the same questions to find their way through the moral maze that confronts them, and in the end, their humanity is all they have to guide them.

Paralkar is himself a doctor and scientist, so the descriptions of the surgical procedures the surgeon must tackle come over as completely authentic. Although they can be a shade gruesome at times, especially for the squeamish (like me), they’re not done to shock or horrify. Rather, they show the skills we take for granted in our surgeons – the near miracles we expect them to perform, and our readiness to criticise and blame if they fail. The underlying suggestion seems to be that we’re near to a point of refusing to accept death as inevitable, and what does that do to questions of faith?

All this mulling over profound questions came after I’d finished the book, though. While I was reading, I was too engrossed in wanting to know the outcome to pause for thought. There’s a very human story here too, and excellently told. Will the surgeon be able to save them all? If not, who will live and who die? What about the woman’s unborn child – is it included in the promise of new life? If they live, what will the future hold for them and for the surgeon? How will the surgeon explain their existence to the villagers – or explain their corpses if he fails to fix their wounds? How will the experience change him, whatever the outcome?

The ending beautifully answers all the questions that should be answered and leaves open all the ones that shouldn’t. Paralkar has achieved the perfect balance of giving a satisfying and thought-provoking story without telling the reader what to think, and as a result this is one that each reader will make unique to herself. One of the most original novels I’ve read in years, I’ll be mulling over it for a long time and suspect it’s one that would give even more on a second read. It gets my highest recommendation.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Serpent’s Tail.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Resh (The Book Satchel) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story takes place in a run-down clinic at the outskirts of a rural Indian village where a once-successful surgeon provides health care to the residents. An untrained pharmacist and her husband assist him in running the clinic. One day the dead visit the clinic. The dead family includes a teacher, his pregnant wife and their son who (acc to them) were stabbed and killed in an attack. However they struck a deal with an angel (an official of the afterlife) to return back to life. But only if their wounds could be operated on by the surgeon. the surgeon has to perform three complex surgeries by dawn to resurrect the dead.

I loved the pacing of the story. It is certainly a page turner and keeps you on your toes. There is magical realism, a macabre beauty and ghostly tones throughout the book. Paralkar being a doctor himself, has given very elaborate descriptions of surgery undertaken on the ghosts. There are meditatons on death and life but they are packed between a gritty, dark, fast moving plot. I loved how real Paralkar's descriptions were — the make-do instruments for the surgery, the bulbs, the concrete ceiling. The chapters leave you wondering about how much the surgeon can achieve in a single night. The novel reads like a fable but alongside the fantastical elements exist the more realistic problems — the lack of trained staff in rural hospitals, corruption, treatment of doctors by patients, ego clashes between doctors.

Read it for excellent writing if you are looking for a pageturner.


Much thanks to Catapult for an e- copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

[Silvia Moreno-Garcia]

A bit of the fantastic, a bit of allegory and a bit of medical drama make for a sometimes confounding whole, but Paralkar shows unusual promise. Although I didn't quite love Night Theater, it left me wanting to see something else from the writer. First lines may be fun, but even better are writers who manage to intrigue you.

Read full review: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/799278...

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so compelling and weird and morbidly fascinating. It captures a single night in rural India when a family (pregnant mom, dad, and son) appears at the doors of the local rundown clinic and tells the doctor that they were murdered last night and that their only chance to live again is if the doctor can successfully fix their wounds overnight.

This is one of those books that makes me wish I had gotten an English degree so I could talk a little more intelligently about it. Like what is it when a plot is structured as a framework to explore philosophical ideas- life, death, human connection, corruption, etc.? Would it be an allegory? I think that implies more of an aspect of overt moralizing than this book goes in for, though; even though it's an excellent playground for some really interesting ideas, it isn't emotionally manipulative or trite. It could easily have gone Scrooge and the three Christmas ghosts, culminating in some convenient life lesson, but thankfully it doesn't.

The story's overall lack of sentimentality is one of the main reasons it worked so well for me. There are some really great moments where the narrative acknowledges the places where it could easily fall into the expectations for this type of story and purposefully doesn't: 

The teacher's story was like a bizarre fable- something a priest might deliver in a religious ceremony. But there were no flowers here, no lamps or burning inherence to make the unreality more palatable.

Or

It was tempting to adopt the pharmacist's way of thinking about the world and everything in it. Whatever would happen would happen, she'd said... Or something similar, some aphorism of endless absolving circularity.

I also liked exploring a lot of the themes here- the concrete consequences of bureaucratic corruption, how people treat you versus how you percieve yourself, how you act when you are completely out of your depth and your yardstick for what's right and wrong has been utterly demolished.

A lot of this was represented well in the contrast between how the older, disillusioned doctor reacts to the situation versus how his young, religious pharmacist experiences it. And even though this feels fable-like in that the characters are all unnamed (the pharmacist, the teacher, etc.), I thought the characterizations were quite well done; they always felt like real people rather than cardboard metaphors.

The last thing I have to mention is how I loved the way it leans into the bizarre grossness of it all. The descriptions of the surgeries kept me absolutely glued to the page!

Overall just great ideas, great story, great characterizations, delightfully weird, couldn't put it down!

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short novel has an irresistible setup: late one evening a surgeon in a rural Indian clinic gets a visit from a family of three: a teacher, his pregnant wife and their eight-year-old son. But there’s something different about this trio: they’re dead. They each bear hideous stab wounds from being set upon by bandits while walking home late from a fair. In the afterlife, an angel reluctantly granted them a second chance at life. If the surgeon can repair their gashes before daybreak, and as long as they stay within the village boundaries, their bodies will be revivified at dawn. For now, they have no blood flow and can feel no pain – ideal conditions for a surgeon to work in. Fighting to stay awake and assisted only by the clinic’s very religious pharmacist, he operates through the night and swaps stories of this life and the next: of mistakes, betrayal, shame and blackmail.

Paralkar draws on dreams, folktales and superstition, and the descriptions of clinic procedures are vivid, as you would expect given the author’s work as a research physician at the University of Pennsylvania. The double meaning of the word “theatre” in the title encompasses the operating theatre and the dramatic spectacle that is taking place in this clinic. But somehow I never got invested in any of these characters and what might happen to them; the précis is more exciting than the narrative as a whole.

A favorite passage:

“Apart from the whispering of the dead in the corridor, the silence was almost deliberate – as if the crickets had been bribed and the dogs strangled. The village at the base of the hillock was perfectly still, its houses like polyps erupting from the soil. The rising moon had dusted them all with white talc. They appeared to have receded in the hours after sunset, abandoning the clinic to its unnatural deeds.”

[Tommi · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5] Vikram Paralkar’s Night Theatre has an enticing premise, as a murdered family of three appear at the door of a surgeon in an Indian village and implore him to operate on their bodies in order to bring them back to life before dawn. Atmospheric and focused, the novel is an altogether fine story of magical realism, but one that is heavily reliant on surgical minutiae – which does not come as a surprise as the author is a research physician – somewhat at the expense of depth in terms of e.g. societal or psychological dimensions. High chances of nomination for the 2020 Wellcome Book Prize.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually raised the rating after rereading; that doesn't happen often.

full post here:
https://www.readingavidly.com/2021/07...

I can honestly say I've never read anything like this book, and that's a very good thing. I seriously get tired of same old same old, and Night Theater is anything but. I have no idea how the author came up with this idea (unless it was from reading a lot of Kafka) but it's pure genius. I'll caution anyone contemplating reading this novel that there are elements of, as the dustjacket blurb notes, "magically unreal drama," requiring a suspension of disbelief. Let yourself go with this "fabulist" novel in that regard, and you will be rewarded many times over.

The first words of the book offer a clue as to the strangeness to come:

"The day the dead visited the surgeon, the air in his clinic was laced with formaldehyde."

And yes, they're really dead.
And no, there are no zombies here.

I had to set aside time and put everything on hold once I started Night Theater because I couldn't tear myself away from it. I also had to jerk myself back to earth and reality once I'd finished as I was so caught up in the tension here as well as the off-kilter premise and the blurring of the lines between living and dead. It is definitely a high-stakes story, one that will have huge ramifications for everyone involved. Surprises abound, but what also kept me riveted was the way in which the author wove into his story important and relevant issues such as corruption, inequality and health care, especially the idea of bureaucrats having power over whether one lives or dies.

Very well done, and the more I've thought about this book since reading it the more it's grown on me , and was still excellent on the second read. It was so good that now I'll look forward to reading anything Mr. Paralkar writes in the future. Night Theater likely won't appeal to readers who need straightforward realism, but for everyone else it's a no-miss.

very very highly recommended.

[〰️Beth〰️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four and a half morbid stars. Reminder I don’t give spoilers.

A strangely compelling tale. Morbid curiosity kept me moving from chapter to chapter. The last quarter of the book had some tangents that I felt were distracting, hence the 1/2 star removal. Overall I have to round up to five because of the writing and how this book will haunt me for some time.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really something special. The cover is stunning, the story compelling, the world both familiar and strange. If I had one reservation, it would be that everything is laid out in the first few chapters, and after that not much more develops or changes. But it's such a short and enthralling book that I didn't mind so much. Looking forward to more from this author.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paralkar proves that one doesn't need an MFA in order to craft beautiful sentences, but it helps to have an M.D. to get medical details correct in this unusual and unpredictable novel which takes place over 24 hours at a rural clinic in India.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read “Night Theater” for my online book club the #BicoastalBibliophiles. We are always trying to read diverse, interesting books and this one was a perfect recommendation from @inkandpaperblog. I listened to the audiobook and it was a great listening experience. I don’t always listen to fiction because I can get bored and zone out, missing some plot points. I was engaged the whole time with this book.

The book starts with a surgeon who is working in a remote village with limited supplies and less than ideal conditions. He has left the city for some reason but we are not told why right away. One night while working in the clinic, a teacher, pregnant wife, and young son show up at the clinic asking for help. They are dead, killed in a violent robbery, and they’ve been given a chance to live again. The teacher asked the surgeon to operate on them and fix their injuries for they will become alive again in the morning. The surgeon with the help of a pharmacist and her husband get to work to fix the family.

First, I enjoyed the straightforward nature of this plot. Most of the action occurs during one night in a nice, linear plot. It’s easy to follow and the book doesn’t use a lot of techniques or gimmicks for tension. This is a well written book. Second, this book is yet very weird. I’ve never read anything like this. It’s not hard to follow but it requires some suspension of belief. I really enjoyed this book and I was engaged the whole time. The plot is revealed deliberately increasing the tension without melodrama. While reading this, I got the impression that this was almost a fable, but I couldn’t exactly figure out the moral or the lesson. I thought the ending was very good and I was kept guessing up until the last sentence. Paralkar does an amazing job writing a bottle story containing a small cast of characters in a clinic over one night while never being boring. I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for something different. ★★★★★ ◊ Audiobook / Paperback ◊ Fiction - Spiritual, Medical Drama, Fable ◊ Listened on Scribd / Purchased from Books Inc. ◊ Published by Catapault in the US on January 14, 2020.▪️

[WndyJW · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic story. A bitter surgeon, forced to work in a government run clinic in a rural Indian village after a humiliating professional misunderstanding, is visited by a family: a teacher, his very pregnant wife, and their young son. The family asks the surgeon to do the unthinkable, to mend their mortal wounds before dawn so that their lifeless bodies can return to life. During the long night the surgeon, his pharmacist and her husband push through exhaustion and fear to help the family, never quite sure if the help they are offering out of compassion is morally permissible.

It is a slim book, a little over 200 pages, but it asks us to think about life and death, right and wrong, God, gods, faith, and the afterlife.

I loved it.

[TraceyL · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Update June 28th 2022: Bumped this up from 3 stars to 4, because I still think back fondly of this novel.*

Interesting premise. A recently murdered family appears in a hospital in rural India as ghosts/zombies. They have been given a second chance at life. If the local surgeon can repair their wounds by morning, they will be brought back to life.

I liked the story of the surgeon trying to save the family members lives while also juggling his other patients. I think the author was trying to explore ideas about reincarnation and the stresses of being a doctor and other stuff, but it honestly went over my head.

[Gail (The Knight Reader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Post Read, Immediate Reaction:

This is a story unlike any I’ve read before. Emojis congruent with my feelings: 😐🤔😱. I am a physician so the grit and grime did not register to me; call me desensitized 🤣. Outside of that, the story and it’s message are simple while quite profound at the same time as the seemingly innocent 24h it is staged in. I would easily reread this tale and would recommend it to those looking for a fantastical read, with some medical drama and superstitious/religious elements.


Updated Full Review:

11 Feb 2020

Night Theater was my first read of 2020 and how fitting a start to the new year it was! I started a new job in a new hospital in January, barely having time to read more than a page or two a day. But persist I did, because time with this unnamed doctor was important to me. I related to him a lot. I felt for his dilemma and his challenges. I felt his need to save even the dead. Because isn’t that what we doctors do?

I’ve always wished non-medical persons would follow me for the 24-35 hour calls I do. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, you know? Night Theater is approximately that but so much more. A physician is presented with the opportunity to save the dead (yep, dead) and what does he do? He gives it the good old physician go. With a vague plan in his head, the doctor approaches his patients with limited supplies and dwindling skill because what other choice is there? Things take an even more eerie turn when his kind act doesn’t go according to plan *cue dramatic music* (spoiler removed)

I especially loved the last few pages of the book. They touched me and showed me the beauty of life, death, purpose and hope. Though I could not see where Vikram was going 90% of the time (and I mean that in the best possible way), I was content with his ending. Hope was left on that last page and there is nothing us doctors crave more from our endeavors.

If you’re looking for a page turner with magical realism, mystery, intrigue, twists and the supernatural, this one is for you. If you’re looking for a story that will touch your heart as much as it shakes you, join us in The Night Theater. You will climb out of the story utterly perplexed and grateful for an eye opening night with the doctor.

An easy 4-5 ⭐️ read. An abundance of thanks is extended to the team at catapult and the author, Dr. Vikram Paralkar, for my finished copy. All opinions are my own.

For those interested, the novel is set in rural India and the author is a medical doctor who hails from Mumbai. Dr Paralkar currently resides in the USA and this is his second book.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

thoughts coming shortly

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m on something of a roll at the moment. This was another cracking read.
In a poor and remote village in India a Doctor and his pharmacist struggle with long hours at a clinic that lacks equipment and is highly unsanitary. After a particularly testing day and late at night, as they close up, a young couple and their eight year old son arrive begging for treatment after a vicious assault. On closer inspection the Doctor realises their wounds mean they could not possibly have survived the attack.
So is this a horror story? One of zombies? I was intrigued. But it is neither, and far more intricate than that and defies genre labelling. I suppose it might be termed contemporary or speculative fiction, though I don’t like the term ‘speculative’ as surely every piece of writing seeks to tread some sort of new ground. It’s certainly original, and about redemption and faith, and a very human story, tremendously well told.
Also, it has that most wonderful thing, a last sentence that goes a long way to explain everything that has gone before. Immensely satisfying.

[Pallavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

***3.0***

We meet a Disgraced Surgeon stuck in a village clinic who hates it and its people, yet goes on his job. His clinic is always short of supplies and often he puts his own money to fund those supplies. He has a local woman and her husband working as pharmacist and errand man. His superior who is in charge of this clinic doesn't provide enough funds to keep the clinic going.

Along with all these problems, our surgeon encounters one more supernatural challenge where he has to fix the wounds of a dead family who visit him one evening. Only if the surgeon is successful before the sunrise the dead will walk again.

I liked the book where the story line was really small but yet said much. The narration was good and included gory details (for me!) of surgeries which I had to skim read. A small book throwing light on corruption in medical world with magical realism.




Thank You Netgalley for the Copy in exchange of a honest Review.

Happy Reading!!