Excerpt from Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Her hands twitched at the sheet again. It slipped off her foot and both of us looked at the scar that ran from under the big toe to her ankle, a ridge of scar tissue.

'It had to be dressed every day for months. Dr Saha came and did the honours.' 'Don't wander,' I said.

'Where was I?'

'In the taxi. With the world outside clear.'

She looked a little confused.

'You said the world was clear.'

'Oh, not the world. Inside my head.'

Each time she had tried to kill herself she had opened her body and let her blood flow out. Was that the drain, then, I wondered, was that how it worked?

'And this time?' I asked her. 'Is it clear now?'

'This time I heard a small voice inside my head, just as I was beginning to slip away. I heard it say, "Please save me." '

'That was you.'

'No, I heard it.'

'It was you,' I said again.

'It must have been, no? I heard it as if it were someone else. And then you came. And Susan. I didn't want it that way. I didn't want the two of you to see anything like that in your lives.

From Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto. Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © Jerry Pinto, 2012.