Hungry Ghosts
A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
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* A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK FOR 2023 *
* LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2024 *
'A shimmering slice of Trinidadian gothic' THE TIMES
'An astonishing novel' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'Deeply impressive ' HILARY MANTEL
The music was still playing when Dalton Changoor vanished into thin air...
On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognisable to those who reside in the farm's shadow. Down below is the barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops – Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, who live hard lives of backbreaking work, grinding poverty and devotion to faith.
When Dalton Changoor goes missing and Marlee's safety is compromised, farmhand Hans is lured by the promise of a handsome stipend to move to the farm as watchman. But as the mystery of Dalton's disappearance unfolds their lives become hellishly entwined, and the small community altered forever.
Hungry Ghosts is a mesmerising novel about violence, religion, family and class, rooted in the wild and pastoral landscape of 1940s colonial central Trinidad.
A 2023 highlight for: Financial Times * Guardian * Evening Standard * Daily Mail * BBC News
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Through the shimmering Caribbean heat-haze emerges an early contender for the Booker Prize. Hosein’s electric debut novel is a tropical gothic noir set in socially divided Trinidad during the ’40s. Reclusive rural landowner Dalton Changoor, whose fortune is built on blood, inexplicably vanishes into thin air, and his young wife Marlee, formerly the laundry maid in a brothel, assumes he’s been murdered but soon receives a ransom note. When kidnappers start killing her pets and prowling her property at night, Marlee asks farmhand Hans Saroop to move into the mansion as nightwatchman—offering him enough money to rescue his family from abject poverty. As this odd couple unravel Dalton’s disappearance and become dangerously entwined, a knotty narrative builds towards its devastating climax. This is a satisfyingly complex literary thriller, full of ravishing description, sensory storytelling and nuanced commentary on injustice, identity, faith, family and colonialism. Rich in inventiveness and insight, it recalls everything from Mark Twain to Marlon James, from Jean Rhys to Toni Morrison, from Peter Carey to Cormac McCarthy. The hauntingly poetic writing throbs with energy and positively perspires with tension.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hosein (The Beast of Kukuyo) sets this thorny literary thriller in the divided Trinidad of the mid-1940s. Eccentric landowner Dalton Changoor's fortune is tied to an unspecified criminal enterprise. His wife, Marlee, doesn't have the details but can pick up the vibe, as "the kind of money that Dalton brought in seemed flecked with blood." When Dalton goes missing, Marlee worries he's been killed, and wonders who did it. Then, after receiving a ransom note, she wonders "what would happen if she didn't care to pay." As the kidnappers try to intimidate Marlee by prowling around the property at night, Marlee asks one of the farmhands, Hans, to guard the house. Hans has spent his life in abject poverty in the barrack alongside his wife, Shweta; their two sons; and five other families. Shweta is desperate to leave the barrack, and Marlee's offer comes with enough money to help them buy their own plot of land. Though a deluge of detail bogs down the pacing, Hosein imbues the proceedings with the swelter of subtropical noir, and entwines his class and colonial commentary with Hans and Marlee's fraught arrangement, as Marlee becomes financially desperate and Hans gets a taste for a better life. Patient readers will find plenty of rewards in this complex tale.
