About the Book
Book: Chronicle of an Hour and a Half
Author: Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari
Publisher: Westland Books
Published: February 2024
Format Read: Hardcover (gifted copy)
A Glimpse of the Book
Set in a fictional rural country in southern India, a news of an illicit affair between a married woman and a younger aged boy causes an uproar in the village. Blind rage stirs a mob and situation goes out of hand and out of rationale.
Review
The title and the plot reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book Chronicle of a Death Foretold. However, the book is only memorable to me because of the chaos in the story, it was my first experience of magical realism. I was flabbergasted at the end of the last chapter. That’s it. I do not remember the intricates of the story, nor the writing, nor the characters.
That’s where this debut published novel by Kannanari (he had mentioned in a virtual meet that he has 3 more written which weren’t published) shines brighter. The descriptions are vivid and picturesque; the characters are all remarkably unlikeable, although in the end I couldn’t help but sympathise for Nabeessuma.
One line in the last page of the book hit me home that it still haunts me:
I gave my children everything. Except sex. Of course. I thought I should have given them that too. If only I knew that one day one of them was going to get killed for seeking it.
My Rating
I had received this book as part of Tandem Collective Global‘s India Readalong. Thank you Tandem and Westland Books.
