Description
A staggering debut novel of murder, loyalty, love, and survival at all costs, set in the teeming underbelly of Calcutta's most infamous neighbourhood.
In Calcutta's notorious red-light district, Lalee aspires to a better life. Her unfailingly loyal client Tilu Shau has dreams too. A heady romantic and marginal novelist, Tilu is in love with the indifferent Lalee and wants to liberate her from her street life with marriage. But when a fellow sex worker and young mother is brutally murdered, the solicitous madam of the Blue Lotus invites Lalee to take the woman's place "upstairs" as a high-end escort. The offer comes with the promise of a more lucrative life but quickly spirals into violence, corruption, and unfathomable secrets that threaten to upset the fragile stability of Lalee's very existence. As Tilu is drawn deeper into his rescue mission, he and Lalee embark on life-altering journeys to escape a savage fate.
As much a page-turner as it is poignant, Small Deaths is a brilliantly drawn modern noir that exposes the reality of society's preyed-upon outcasts, their fierce resilience, and the dangerous impediments that stand in the way of their dignity, love, and survival.
'Rijula Das has evaded the prevalent tropes of writing. It is very difficult to pin down the genre she is writing in — is it a love story, for instance; is it a murder mystery; is it a novel about social justice? The book gives light to the popular and wrong notion that literature needs to necessarily be heavy. It manages to achieve everything that good literature does while at the same time being entertaining. It is full of beautiful humorous touches and outstanding at zooming in to details.' — Judges of the JCB Prize for Literature 2021
'An intensely gripping tale of a crime and an investigation set against the dark side of the city of Calcutta; yet, at the same time, it is a story that is luminous with redeeming touches of love and hope, and a final sense of justice.' — Judges of the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award 2021
'Rijula Das’s book is as gripping as the best crime fiction but also as intricate and well constructed as good literature should be. It’s relentless action, but the characters are not caricatures…The observations are so acute and at the same time so funny.' — Amit Varma
'Rijula Das surprises you with everything in this book: the writing, the scenes, the characters, the story. A debut you cannot stop reading.' — Arunava Sinha
'Addictive and hilarious. Rijula Das is a writer to watch.' — Avni Doshi, author of Burnt Sugar, shortlisted for the Booker Prize
'It takes a keen insight to portray women like Lalee, Maya, Amina, and Sonia in all their profundity and shallowness. Das knows her women well.' — Feminism in India
