The City of Devi: A Novel
During their awkward courtship, physicist Karun tells statistician Sarita about an alternative vision of the Hindu triumvirate in which Brahman is replaced with the mother goddess Devi. This trinity just so happens to match the novels in Suri’s now completed trilogy: The Death of Vishnu (2001), The Age of Shiva (2008), and The City of Devi. So frenetic, concussive, and flagrantly explicit is this on-target, apocalyptic urban satire, Suri can stand as the Tom Wolfe of Mumbai. First the city is bewitched by a futuristic Bollywood extravaganza, Superdevi. Then war breaks out between Pakistan and India, the nuclear threat escalates, Hindu and Muslim vigilantes menace the populace, and Devi herself appears at a beach resort, drawing a frenzied crowd. Yet Sarita is determined to cross the perilous city-in-ruins to search for her husband. Jaz—gay, Muslim, self-mocking, impish, and resolute—is also on a risk-all quest of the heart. By daringly yoking erotic longing with terrorism in a trinitarian tale of amped-up mythology and end-of-world chaos, Suri forges an incendiary love story and provocative improvisation on India’s monumental epics. --Donna Seaman