The Sly Company of People Who Care

by Rahul Bhattacharya

In flight from the tame familiarity of home in Bombay, a twenty-six-year-old cricket journalist chucks his job and arrives in Guyana, a forgotten colonial society of raw, mesmerizing beauty. Amid beautiful, decaying wooden houses in Georgetown, on coastal sugarcane plantations, and in the dark rainforest interior scavenged by diamond hunters, he grows absorbed with the fantastic possibilities of this new place where descendants of the enslaved and indentured have made a new world. Ultimately, to fulfill his purpose, he prepares to mount an adventure of his own. His journey takes him beyond Guyanese borders, and his companion will be the feisty, wild-haired Jan. In this dazzling novel, propelled by a singularly forceful voice, Rahul Bhattacharya captures the heady adventures of travel, the overheated restlessness of youth, and the paradoxes of searching for life€™s meaning in the escape from home.

Genres: Fiction, India, Travel, Adventure, Indian Literature, Novels, World Literature

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Rahul Bhattacharya is a writer, journalist and editor. His first novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care, won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Pundits from Pakistan, his first book, was a Wisden Cricketer top ten cricket book of all time. He was born in Bombay and lives in Delhi with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exotica for the chattering classes.

Since this book is touted by both author and publisher as a novel, although it isn't, I'll go ahead and review it as a novel; as such it deserves zero stars, for I don't think I have ever read such a jumbled hotchpotch of a "novel" in my whole life. It has no shape, no direction, no unifying spirit. It's split into three distinct parts unconnected to each other, of which the first is travelogue pure, the second an info-dump on history, geography and politics, and the third a lust-story that has as much frisson as a damp candle-wick, and fizzles out accordingly.

Part One: I wasn't even 30 pages into the "novel" before I felt like throwing it at the wall, mostly because I saw through the veneer and recognised it as an almost undisguised account of the author's own experiences during a year in Guyana. He likes to demonstrate his coolness by internalising Creolese, using it in his own narrative, as if to say "look at me! I'm not an intellectual with enough money to spend a year doing nothing except gather research for a book; I'm one of "them"! "Them" being the wasters and down-and-outers of which there are indeed far too many in Guyana. Their sound-bites are perhaps meant to impress the Western literary set (who have never been to Guyana nor heard this quaint patois before) with their deep wisdom; other Guyanese will shake their heads and see the banality and everyday ordinariness of these people and their dialogue. (Note to reader: Guyanese are not all wasters and down-and-outers. And some of us can speak grammatical English. Imagine that!)

So, the characterisation of this "novel" doesn't work. The dialogue goes nowhere. There is no build-up, no cohesion, no narrative drive, not even a direction: just a series of random individuals, conversations and encounters, mostly of a trivial nature. The episode with "Baby" -- an ex-convict who takes him on a pork-knocking expedition to the Interior - did hold my interest, mostly due to the competent writing, but I'll get to the writing later.

Part Two is, as I mentioned, an info-dump. More than a couple of paragraphs of info-dump in a real novel is inexcusable; 44 straight pages of it are enough to de-mask this book. Whole chapters of background information on history and politics are just fine in non-fiction. In a (real) novel they reveal the writer as an amateur. Good editors of debut novelists (which this writer claims to be) red-pencil info-dumps.

In Part Three he finally meets Jan. In the book's cover blurb we are told that "... he is not just seduced by the country: he is also captivated by the feisty yet fragile Jan, and together they embark on an adventure which will take them into a new country and change both their lives."

The words "feisty" and "fragile" are euphemisms for "shallow" and "stupid" (yes, we do feel sorry for her in the end; she's just a victim. But that's a different story). From their first meeting any reader of any experience knows that these two are irredeemably mismatched, so that the author's next move just seems incredibly stupid; where's his brain, you think? Certainly not in his head. When everything goes pear-shaped you can't help thinking, serves him right. The adventure that "changes their lives"? We have all had such adventures; the kind of adventure you fall into when you are young and foolish, of which you think afterwards "OMG you IDIOT!" and "never again", and learn a little bit about the human condition, especially your own.

Then quite suddenly, in the last few pages of the book, there is page-turning action. Out of the blue. Like one of those sudden Guyanese cloudburts in an otherwise sunny sky: suddenly you are drenched, next minute, sun again. Guess what! The "novel" is actually a thriller! This sudden metamorphosis takes place on page 251 of a very slow-moving 281 page book.

For any other "novelist" this kind of disconnected, jerky narrative arc would have reviewers tearing out their hair in pain, but somehow this book has got the chattering classes quite excited. Everyone is falling in love with Guyana! I can't help wondering if the reviews might have been more critical had the author been first-world white. As an Indian, he is allowed to be patronising: pretending to be underclass when he's clearly not.

The general delight this book evokes might be mostly due to the writing, which I concede is very good. The comparisons with Naipaul, Rushdie, Greene etc are probably justified, writing-wise. But it takes far more than good writing to create a great novel. I can only think that the publisher is playing out this "novel" charade in the hope of sneaking the book into the short-lists for the major literary prizes. If there are prizes for creative non-fiction, travelogues, travel memoirs and so-on (all of which are better descriptions for this book) they are certainly not as prestigious as the Man Asian.

The two stars are for the writing alone.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a delight! The language, the vivid images of Guyana, the character of the narrator, all come together to make a mesmerizing story. I had some difficulty in the beginning because of the dialect but after a while, some of the repeated words and phrases became familiar and comprehensible. And I stopped worrying about the rest and just enjoyed the language.

The narrator is a young man from Bombay, a cricket journalist, who comes for a prolonged visit to Guyana. Through his eyes, we see the beauty of Guyana, tropical, run down yet gorgeous. He takes a boat trip with a local man from his neighborhood. I was breathless during this trip. Bhattacharya made me feel as if I were actually on this journey, sweltering heat, lush flowers and bare huts.

Later, the narrator takes another trip with a young woman he meets into nearby Brazil.
The biggest plot event involves this young woman. Their relationship is an edgy infatuation that marks the culmination of the story.

It was both touching and exciting to witness the young man's hunger for new experiences. He greets his shabby lodgings with gusto and enjoys every aspect of a country marked by poverty and grandeur.

I finished the book with tender feelings towards the young narrator and a strong desire to see Guyana. The book enabled me to leave the confines of my apartment and experience an exotic environment, full of adventure and beauty.

I would love to discuss the end, the feelings of which are so different than the rest of the story, but I don't want to give any spoilers. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. It was sadder than the rest of the book and yet seemed to be a fitting conclusion and a reflection of how we often feel when trips are ending.

I'm very glad to have read this book. The author is himself a cricket journalist so unless he writes another novel, I probably won't be reading more by him. I hope he does write another novel, though; this one was so satisfying.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 75% of this book is some of the best travel writing I've read -- seriously, it ranks up there with Rebecca West, Graham Greene, and (the oft-cited in this book) Naipaul. (But Bhattacharya's voice is thoroughly contemporary - his take on race (unlike the aforementioned) nuanced and reflective). Guyana springs to life in these pages, the beauty of the landscapes, the damp lively dereliction of Georgetown, the amazing diversity and vibrant voices of the people, even tastes (food and drink), sounds (especially, lovingly, music) and smells are vividly and brilliantly realized. The historical context is there, humor is there, the right amount (but not too much) writerly introspection on the displacement of travel is there, pathos and dignity are there -- it all works. The characters depicted -- Baby, Uncle Lance, Dr. Red, even cameos like Bibi -- are vibrant and compelling.

The only question - and still unanswered for me -- why cast this as a novel? The first 90% of the book has nothing novelistic about it. Gritty grainy realism for the most part, with a travel writer's license for a few tellingly dramatic anecdotes. But the pacing, structure and voice are all patently non-fiction.

And then at the very end, there's a dramatic incident that seeks to give a deeper meaning, a novelistic conclusion to a book that needs neither. It's the first part of the book that feels fictional -- and also, separatetly, the first part ofo the book that feels false. The drama is so heavy handed and trite seeming -- for the first time Bhattacharya's ear seems to fail him.

Before we get to that final twist, the last quarter fo the book is taken up by a love story that straddles the line between irritating and poignant. And it feels tacked on -- even though it also feels like some version of that story did happen to Bhattacharya. But the narrative voice at least (unlike the ending) is consistent iwht the first brilliant 75% of the book, so I'm not as opposed to this section (even though it's a three-star turn at best, compared to the five-star travel memoir that precedes it)

I don't think I want to read a whole book about cricket, but I will eagerly keep an eye out for anything else Bhattacharya writes. He has a gift for observation, and is a brilliantly talented writer. And he's also left me with a craving to see Guyana...

[Alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will say right off the bat my review for this book is biased. After having traveled and volunteered in Guyana for 2 months last spring my entire experience was relived in every page of this book. Bhattacharya's depiction of the surroundings, the interactions and vocabulary in the conversations of the people are so incredibly on point the entire book almost appeared as a flashback of my time there. If you haven't visited Guyana then this is the most accurate modern portrayal I have read in writing yet.
Nevertheless from a stylistic standpoint this book comes across much more as travel literature rather than actual fiction. Although I assume if the characters were created for the purpose of the narrative it had to be categorized as such.
In conclusion, I would highly recommend this work to anyone who is interested in the social structure , landscapes and political corruption in this country. I was captivated from the beginning to end.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

quite an amazing book. If this is a novel, then we have a new definition of novel. It's kind of a guy knocking around the third world journal/travelogue/creative nonfiction that, thankfully, is NOT magic realism. You have to believe at least some of it happened to the author who, if you can't guess by reading his name, is Indian himself. The setting is Guyana, the same Jonestown Guyana we know of, but that has nothing to do with this book which sent me off to the atlas and taught me a whole lot about the history of our continent. Because much of it is written in a creole peculiar to the region, a wonderful musical language Shakespeare himself would have loved, at times it makes for slow reading, thus four stars instead of five. I'm going to hate taking this one back to the library.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the narrator’s voice from the very beginning of this deceptively simple story. The Sly Company of People Who Care is the tale of a young man who stumbles into a new culture and is beguiled by it. It’s a coming-of-age for him, and it’s about the coming-of-age of a decolonised country as well. And perhaps the question asked by that enigmatic title is, who cares about the cultural identity that’s formed from the wreckage of colonisation?
To read my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/01/03/th... - and do visit the other reviews by other members of the Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize review team, because my take on this novel seems to be a bit different to theirs!

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me a while to get into, but oh what a book! Rahul Bhattacharya has done a beautiful job chronicling his (purportedly fictional) wanderings through Guyana and neighboring countries. Bhattacharya's prose is lyrical and poetic, he is an adept observer and an even better mimic who manages to entertain, enlighten and make you poignant all at the same time. The book is not specifically engaging, nor does it have much of a plot, but that is beside the point. The narrator meanders from one place to another, experiencing one set of people and then another, one adventure or tragedy followed by another and he goes on taking it all in. There is a sense of privilege about the narrator, for being able to do this in a land where priorities and perspectives are necessarily hardened by the realities of survival. To read about Guyana from the perspective of an Indian; moreover to see the narrator's modern Indian outlook juxtaposed with a transplanted rural outlook derived in large part from India and re-enacted with local flavor in Guyana is simply spectacular. Many realities play themselves out in the same space. The author is participant, narrator, chronicler, observer and player all at once. Read this book for a unique and adventurous journey. Forgive it its minor blemishes - this is Bhattacharya's debut novel and in some parts it shows. Read it with an open mind and it will take you to magical places.

[Raghu Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most interesting thing about this first novel from Rahul Bhattacharya is that it is pre-dominantly written in the English spoken by the Guyanese underclass. The language is unique and endearing in its own way and is irreverent towards the accepted English grammar. I am amazed that the author, an Indian from India, could have such a good grasp of it after staying for just a year in Guyana. The book, though billed as a novel, reads more like a travelogue.

The novel is in three parts. In the first part, the narrator, whose name is never specified as far as I can remember, travels into the interior to engage in some 'porknocking' ( the act of panning for gold /diamonds) with a man called Baby. Baby himself has just been released from prison after serving time for killing its partner. The narrative takes you from Georgetown across the rain forests and then to Potaro, some native American territory and also the Kaieteur waterfalls, which is described as spectacular.
The second part deals with some political and socio-cultural history of Guyana, delving into the racial tensions between the Afro-Guyanese and the East Indians. Though I have never been in Guyana, I have read about this racial divide in books written by Guyanese cricketers of East Indian origin. One can see that even after more than a hundred years after arrival, the Indians are referred to as 'coolies' colloquially by the others. For their part, the Indians have their share of prejudices against the Afro-Guyanese, regarding them as lazy, violent people.
The third part takes the narrator to Venezuela in the company of sexy, alluring Jankey Ramseywack, an Indo-Guyanese girl who wants to escape life away from her abusive husband. They fall in love, travel without visas, make love a lot and then gradually fall out with one another and return to Guyana without speaking to each other. The narrator perceptively observes that a man's pre and post-orgasm wisdoms are very different beasts!

The first two parts are somewhat slow moving whereas the third one is more absorbing and grabsbed my interest, possibly because of the personality of Jankey. Almost all the Guyanese characters in the novel are people living on the fringes of its society and barely eking out a living. Consequently, the book does not portray any Guyanese speaking proper English or living a middle-class life. Since much of the travelogue takes you to the hinterland or to the border areas in Venezuela, one gets an image of Guyana as though it is stuck somewhere in the mid-20th century and still seeking to enter modern times. Hence, a middle-class Guyanese, speaking good English, can get offended at the portrayal of his country and its people. But it is not the author's fault that he chose to write about people and events which are outside the realm of middle-class Guyanese life. His empathy for the land and people of Guyana is well evident in the narrative and he can't be accused of contempt for the land or its people. The novelty of the 'Guyanese English' wears off by the time one finishes the first part of the book.
The author writes some fine passages along the way. For example, he describes the city, a little after dawn, as follows: "...when the cleaning machines have brushed away yesterday's evidence and the fresh day is falling crisp as golden wafers, when reasonable people with reasonable habits are coming out of their holes to dot the world with their strange faces, gestures, costumes, voices, until bit by bit, by living magic, the grand tapestry is made..."

I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it because of its originality and freshness.

[Namita Krishnamurthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What really annoys me is when an author hears the sound of his own narration in the background; as he writes, line by line, the previous sentence already bumping into this next, parading in the glory of its own imagination. This is how I experience the writing of many self-indulgent male writers like Philip Roth or Salman Rushdie. While Rahul Bhattacharya possesses neither the literary glamour nor the tragic self-importance of such writers, his tone fell oddly in place with such a narrative. The scene-building: mystifying and trite; the protagonist: writhing in alternating currents of misery, self-pity, and delusions of gallantry.

As I kept turning the pages, the more I thought of the book as a FB rant/blog post, the more I enjoyed it. As a novel, it's trash. I don't think Bhattacharya is a bad writer. In fact, parts of the book are quite lovely. It's just that this mishmash of words and images, a bumbling storyline, and the overwhelming pretensions of a novel (in style and tone) that put me off of "The Sly Company of People Who Don't Care". Oh wait. The sly company of people who do care. Tsk. My bad.

[Wiebke (1book1review) · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book this slow needs a reward for me finishing it. Having said that I like the things I learned from this book about Guyana and the people and life there as well as some small part of its history.

As a novel however this book is highly disappointing. The story is just followwing the main character around who is not following any other purpose than to look what's there and escape from his old life. But none of his personal issues are ever really discussed (or maybe I just missed them).

As a travel journal about a foreign country this is very interesting, also because it is not written by a white man from England or America, but by an Indian, who experiences the world differently and has different access to Guyana (I would think at least).

One more word to the writing, which is meant to represent the language of Guyana and the culture, but it was mostly confusing and not beautiful for me to read. I found myself tuning out every now and again and had to reread passages because I wasn't paying attention.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vividly told experiences of an Indian journalist in Guyana, including fearless excursions to the interior to "porknock" for diamonds and into Venezuela. With a reggae beat and the beautiful patois of native speech, it is uneven, but fascinating.

[Viju · Rating 4 out of 5]

After having had multiple false starts with this book the last four years, I was able to get 80% of it done in one sitting. It took a little while to warm up to the style of narration and also the Guyana environment. There are three parts to this book and the third part seems very autobiographical. Rahul Bhattacharya is a great writer as witnessed in Pundits from Pakistan and I am hoping he writes more!

And now I am intrigued but Guyana quite a bit!

Also this was a gift from Em in 2016 and I finally got around to finishing it!

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was young I had a camp counselor from the country of Surinam in South America. He became a family friend and visited my home a few times even after I left the camp. The story of this novel takes place in the neighboring country of Guyana. The tales reawakened many of my old counselors forgotten stories of his homeland.
They sounded so familiar yet also brand new. The author gets away with a brilliant conceit. His protagonist is a sports and travel writer. So the travel writer describes in a book about a place that is way off the beaten path of most tourists and travelers. The protagonist is an East Indian. I was aware that in both Guyana and Surinam there are large East Indian populations. The author describes the history of the East Indians, West Indians, Amerindians, Blacks, Reds and everyone in between. They work together, they pull apart, there are tensions and divisions and racism. But the author makes sure to show that all have a common humanity. The book really picks up when the protagonist, ostensibly to cover the cricket leagues in the country, falls in love. He and his new found love travel the country, take side trips to Brazil and Venezuela and almost get denied entry back into Guyana. The eye of the reporter is brilliant in describing places one is most likely never to see and one really wonders, will he be able to smuggle himself back into the country before his visa expires? Will he find true love? You'll be glad you read this book.

[Parvathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the book. The slow, languid South American-ness, the mixed-race language, the depiction of a kind of human viciousness... all of it make this book quite a treasure. Rahul Bhattacharya is so very young to write such a wise, observant book!

[Ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this deep, languorous dive into Guyana's landscape, society, language, cuisine and life.

[Amanda L Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow-paced. It took a while to get into. I tried to finish it quickly as I felt it was too slow for me, and I found it difficult to keep up with the locations the narrator was in. The writing was good, but it felt as though the setting just jumped around a lot without warning.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was actually not too hard to care about the intrepid endearing traveller allowing his curiosity to lead him to places he never dreamed of.

[Akshay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Supposedly a novel, The Sly Company of People who Care, reads like a travelogue. The narrator is a cricket journalist, who’s taken a year off to go live in Guyana, a country he’s visited before, fleetingly, to report on a cricket match. The ‘novel’ is broken into three diverse parts, his exploration of Guyana’s interior with diamond-hunters, the travails of life as an ‘Indian National’ in Georgetown, and the possibly exciting, but mostly uncomfortable love(lust?) story. He has been compared to Naipul but Naipul’s detached, dispassionate style is very different from the lyrical, evocative prose this book is written in. The narrator is tired of his set, uninspiring world and thus when he reaches Guyana he sees in its melting pot of Indians( descendants of indentured labourers who came in the 19th century), Africans who were brought in as slaves and the indigenous Amerindians a remarkable harmony, he loves the ‘epic indolence’ of the place. The language in this book replicates Guyanese patois, and he makes you learn it along the way.

It is the ultimate youthful adventure, Guyana almost seems an ‘accidental place’ to him. There are cracks though, the undercurrent of violence in the culture, the rootlessness of the Indians there, the racial conflict. Guyana was no accidental place, it was created by the wreckage of colonialism creating a unique but fractured cultural identity. This is a coming of age novel where a ‘coming of age’ happens because of an abrupt disconnection with the author’s past, his experience of a glorious world where one starts feeling nostalgia for the present. The idyllic world slowly turns uncomfortable and he leaves behind personal wounds for which he can just regret. The last part is also a very interesting portrait of the awkwardness of a love affair.

I love the book because it gives you a window into a different world, and is beautifully written. It has inspired me to travel, to disconnect from everything around me( to go somewhere else), and made me think about identity a lot. The journey of self-discovery can be many things, and it is a beguiling idea that the eschewal of home is a way to discover the self. The second way this book inspires is the way it is written. It’s Huck Finn, and Marquez at the same time. His words drip with the sense of the place, there is poetry in his language, and they evoke sounds, scents(especially scents) and colours. I will never write like that, I know, but I can aspire to.

[Deandra K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading some of the reviews, I have to wonder: Since when did we all subscribe to the concept that novels need structured plots and narratives to be good? Anyone heard of William Faulkner? I'm in no way comparing Bhattacharya to Faulkner, but hopefully you get the point.

I enjoyed this book for a number of reasons, some personal. I am a Guyanese-American who has yet to visit the country, but whose pride and roots lay solidly there. My parents (born and raised in the Indo-Guyanese countryside) immersed me in all things Guyanese- the food, the Creole, the culture and traditions, which on the one hand seemed exciting and rich, but on the other, seemed backwards and awkward for an immigrant kid growing up in Queens.

I say this to emphasize: Bhattacharya's novel is authentic and compelling, balancing both sides of the portrait of Guyana as beautiful and unadulterated and vulgar and artificial. These two truths mingle beautifully in The Sly Company of People Who Care. I highly recommend (and plan on writing more on this later!).

[Kb · Rating 2 out of 5]

The style of this book is so similar to Open City that I'm baffled by my reaction to it. I suspect it is linked to my own prejudices. Cole's narrator moved partially in a realm I was comfortable with - that of a highly educated person in America, whereas Bhattacharya dealt with the lower-class people of Guyana, who are experts in everything I am not.

The description of Guyana and the surrounding areas are wonderful and lush. I enjoyed that he gave us the history of the country and explained how racial tensions filled almost every action. Sometimes the description of food seemed too much but at other times it was mouthwatering.

I also think my reaction had to deal with each narrator's victim. Cole's narrator's victim grew up and became successful - embodying the adage that the best revenge is a well-lived life. Bhattacharya's narrator's victim, however, we have no idea what will happen and the possibilities are scary.

[Denali · Rating 2 out of 5]

I imagine this will lead to a discussion with Rao but I thought this was just "eh," the average of some of the excellent bits and some of the not so great parts and some general structural problems. I walked into this hoping for a West Indian version of "English, August" (an excellent Indian slacker in a strange land book). I loved the descriptions of life in Guyana juxtaposed with "mid 20s what next" syndrome but this would have probably made more sense as a series of installments rather than a rambling journey through a year. Frequently reminded me of the excellent "Searching for El Dorado."

[Srikanth Mantravadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sly Company of People Who Care is one of the most flavourful books I've read. It has a strong whiff of Guyana and South America because of the evocative writing of Bhattacharya who brings alive scenes and visions of the colourful place in this peculiar mix of autobiographical/ travelogue'ish fiction. It does take a while to get used to the writing because of the liberal use of Creolese (Lots of conversations going on)and Guyanese jargon. The only way forward is to persist rather than abandon because this book deserves that chance.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful & strange language describing a 26-y.o. Indian journalist wandering around Guyana. It's not really about West Indies cricket, the Guyana seascape, or any tightly plotted moral lesson, but it's loaded w/how expressive & creative the local dialect is when talking about all those things & more—over cheap rum & blasting soca. As a reader with limited patience for indulgent use of dialect, I totally dug the sound of this book.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

A young Indian journalist moves to Guyana for a while, where he languishes and luxuriates and occasionally gets into scrapes. Then he meets a woman and they go to Venezuela and we the readers discover he's not the man we thought. Cut out the woman stuff, and this could have been an interesting travelogue about the permeability of borders as well as about the multicultured society that makes up Guyana and most of the world.

[Moushumi Ghosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful. Bhattacharya is Naipaul without the ire. A cool detached observer of the raw beauty and rich chocolatey Creole language that is both a truth and a lie and yet all Guyana. I need to read it in doses because it's so rich with metaphors and euphemisms some of which cut through to the meaning even better than plain English.

[Mherriges · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of a coming of age story set in Guyana and its surrounds but as a young adult. U2's "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" sums it up best. Colorful story telling and the authors ability to spring the stark reality of its culture and characters from the pages makes this an interesting read.

[Atharva · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a beautiful novel... sometimes it feels as a memoir, sometimes fiction. The novel basically delves into subjects such as loneliness, the running-away from a boring life, moving-on with things etc. A picturesque debut for a successful sports writer, it is a must read for anyone interested in South American literature. Brilliant work! Kudos to Rahul Bhattacharya!

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading this - I loved the narrator's voice but I couldn't not figure out what was going on or what the point was. It was going nowhere, or at least not fast enough to keep me interested. I found I was not a person who cared.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really struggled with this. Just couldn't penetrate enough the Guyanese patois that dominated the opening chapters and as a result the rambling unstructured nature of this novel/travelogue got me more and more frustrated.

[Nettle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recognize the artistry of the writing, but I didn't get engaged by the characters, and the language itself overwhelmed my ability to follow the story.