title: Low by: Thayil, Jeet published: 2020-01-21 read: 2020-08 preview

Low by Jeet Thayil. Also shortlisted somewhere.  About a mid-30s? indian couple, who’d lived in the US for years, and now repatriating to Bangalore.  Except that she’s deceased, and he carries her ashes around.  He copes with her apparent suicide through alcohol and drugs, in an almost continuous stupor, stumbling from one place to the next. 

Impossible for me to relate to, I ploughed until halfish the book, then decided, enough is enough.  Then I’d rather reread Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or even Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 (the book of his which I disliked most, while having read almost all of Heller’s books).

And as always: I’m just too stupid to understand the book. So read it yourself and decide, or teach me.