Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2011
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Searing. Explosive. Lyrical. Compassionate. Here is the astonishing new novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger, a book that took rage and anger at injustice and turned it into a thrilling murder story. Now, with the same fearlessness and insight, Aravind Adiga broadens his canvas to give us a riveting story of money and power, luxury and deprivation, set in the booming city of Mumbai.
At the heart of this novel are two equally compelling men, poised for a showdown. Real estate developer Dharmen Shah rose from nothing to create an empire and hopes to seal his legacy with a building named the Shanghai, which promises to be one of the city’s most elite addresses. Larger-than-life Shah is a dangerous man to refuse. But he meets his match in a retired schoolteacher called Masterji. Shah offers Masterji and his neighbors—the residents of Vishram Society’s Tower A, a once respectable, now crumbling apartment building on whose site Shah’s luxury high-rise would be built—a generous buyout. They can’t believe their good fortune. Except, that is, for Masterji, who refuses to abandon the building he has long called home. As the demolition deadline looms, desires mount; neighbors become enemies, and acquaintances turn into conspirators who risk losing their humanity to score their payday.
Here is a richly told, suspense-fueled story of ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none: the new India as only Aravind Adiga could explore—and expose—it. Vivid, visceral, told with both humor and poignancy, Last Man in Tower is his most stunning work yet.
BookBrowse
Last Man in Tower was a struggle to finish. The reviews I've read all seem to skirt around the central issue that I imagine many readers will have with this novel: it's slow-moving, and there are far too many characters. In a single page, ten characters might be named, all of whom you've heard of before but must be introduced again and again (a third of the way through the novel, central characters are still being identified by their ages and professions; even the author seems to acknowledge that it's difficult to keep everybody straight). There is some absolutely beautiful descriptive language on display throughout, but the author spends far too much time setting the scene, so that by page 200, you're still waiting for something to happen." - Morgan Macgregor
Other Reviews
"Starred Review. Though occasionally overwritten ("The hypodermic needle of the outside world had bent at his epidermis and never penetrated"), Adiga is a master of pacing." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Adiga nails the culture of corruption. How exciting to watch a writer come into his own, surpassing the achievement of his first novel." - Kirkus
"A funny yet deeply melancholic work, Last Man in Tower is a brilliant, and remarkably mature, second novel. A rare achievement." - The Economist
"Magnificent ... A richly evoked, Dickensian world that explores the chasm between rich and poor, the venal and the incorruptible ... Adiga succeeds in giving a voice and a sense of humor to the powerless. .... All human life - and longing - is here. Marvelous stuff." - The Tatler (UK)
"As well-paced as any crime story. Every one of the huge cast of characters is brilliantly drawn. I’m aghast with admiration. There is no one writing fiction as good as this in Britain or America." - Reader's Digest
"Evocative, entertaining, and angry ... All of Adiga's gifts for sharp social observation and mordant wit [come] to the fore.... Teeming with life and skullduggery." -
Ceri Radford, The Telegraph (UK)
"A subtle and nuanced examination of the nature of personal corruption ... [Adiga] continues his project of shining a light on the changing face of India, bringing us a picture that is as compelling as it is complex." - The Guardian(UK)
"Timely ... An unsettling novel, well suited to the febrile and shifting city it seeks to reclaim." - The Observer (UK)
"Richly comedic ... Beautifully done. ... Funny and engaging as he can be, Adiga never forgets the seriousness of his subject ... A morality tale for the modern age [that is] as honest as it is entertaining." - The Times
"Acute observations and sharp imagery ... An indictment of the hypocritical mores of the middle class, prepared to cut corners and take recourse to ‘number two activities’ in its hurry to move up in life. Like all cautionary tales, it embodies more than a little truth about our times." - Financial Times (UK)
"Ambitious ... Memorable ... Adiga is Dickensian in the extent of his cast. Around his two main characters he marshals more than 20 others ... [He] lays out this most frenetic of megalopolises before us, by turns fascinating, sensual and horrifying, as his writing takes an impressive step onwards." - The Independent on Sunday (UK)
"Richly evocative ... To make a building such as a block of flats the frame for a novel has rich possibilities in a modern world where lives are forever being forced together by collective structures.... Adiga [shows] considerable skill at evoking the quotidian lives, domestic and communal, of Tower A’s inhabitants." - The Sunday Times (UK)
This information about Last Man in Tower was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Aravind Adiga is the author of The White Tiger, which was awarded the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Last Man in Tower, and a collection of stories, Between the Assassinations. He was born in India and attended Columbia and Oxford universities. He is a former correspondent for Time magazine whose work has also appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, the Sunday Times (London), and the Financial Times, among other publications. He lives in India.
Author Interview
Link to Aravind Adiga's Website
Name Pronunciation
Aravind Adiga: arh-vindh adi-ja
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