Last man in tower : a novel
/ Aravind Adiga.
- 1st U.S. ed.
- New York : Alfred A. Knopf , 2011.
- 381 p. ; 25 cm.
When Mumbai was still Bombay, the apartment building became the new village, inhabitants growing up and old together, intertwined in one another's rhythms and needs. Tower A of the Vishram Society is one such building-both a character and the setting in this novel. Here, Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Communists have lived together for decades, finding recent common ground in their suspicions about the new "modern" single girl in 3B. But when a developer offers each resident an astronomical sum to move out so that he might build a luxury condo, greed threatens to destroy the community. But one holdout, the teacher Mr. Masterji, is determined that knowledge and principle will protect him. The momentum builds as Masterji's neighbors become consumed by money, and the characters grapple with circumstances, and endure difficult changes of heart. This is a harsh look at Mumbai's new wealth, but the characters are more than archetypes. Though the allure of capitalism has won them over, the inhabitants of Tower A are at the mercy of the rich as much as their neighbor, the teacher, is at the mercy of them.
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Apartment houses----Fiction Real estate developers----Fiction Social conditions----Fiction