The Story of My Assassins Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, New Delhi, India and our BookBrowse Review of The Story of My Assassins.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. How is this storytelling style, with a multiplicity of narratives, different from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, the book The White Tiger, or other stories you've read or heard about contemporary India? Did any perspectives surprise you, or show you a side of India you hadn't seen before?
2. What were your first thoughts about the protagonist? Did your perception change as the story continued? The author has said he chose an "acidic, dyspeptic, carping, dislikable" narrator because that was the best way to open up the highly complex, polyphonic material of contemporary India. If the narrator had an earnest, sincere voice, do you think the story would be more banal? By not creating sympathy for the narrator, does the author make you feel more empathy for his story of India?
3. The question of fatherhood and responsibility arises several times in the text. The sardar feels he didn't do enough to train his son for survival. What skills are necessary for survival in this story? How could the hit men, or the protagonist, have been better prepared for the events at hand?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Melville House. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.