Selection Day
A Novel
-
-
3.8 • 16 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The White Tiger and Amnesty, a “ferociously brilliant” (Slate) novel about two brothers coming of age in a Mumbai slum, raised by their crazy, obsessive father to be cricket champions.
*A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES * AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK
Manjunath Kumar is fourteen and living in a slum in Mumbai. He knows he is good at cricket—if not as good as his older brother, Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented sibling, and is fascinated by curious scientific facts and the world of CSI. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn’t know. Sometimes it even seems as though everyone has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself. When Manju meets Radha’s great rival, a mysterious Muslim boy privileged and confident in all the ways Manju is not, everything in Manju’s world begins to change, and he is faced by decisions that will challenge his sense of self and of the world around him.
Filled with unforgettable characters from across India’s social strata—the old scout everyone calls Tommy Sir; Anand Mehta, the big-dreaming investor; Sofia, a wealthy, beautiful girl and the boys’ biggest fan—Selection Day “brings a family, a city, and an entire country to scabrous and antic life” (Chicago Tribune).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With his brilliant, raw energy ricocheting off of every line, Booker winner Adiga (White Tiger) turns his wry wit and his scrutiny to the youth leagues of cricket in Mumbai, following the successes and failures of teenage brothers Radha Krishna and Manjunath Kumar, who have been both formed and broken by their visionary but abusive father, Mohan. Brought to Mumbai as children after their mother left, the boys have grown up in a "one-room brick shed, divided by a green curtain." Ever since, they've spent every hour hoping and preparing for a different future, which they know depends on their ability to outshine all the other boys on the cricket field. To either help or hinder this process comes a cast of scouts, recruiters, and hangers-on, each of whom is etched with Adiga's trademark clarity they are as defined by their fate as they are resentful of it. "Revenge is the capitalism of the poor," he writes, describing Mohan's resolve to prove the potential of his sons, as well as their eventual attempts to escape him. But the claim also fuels the energy of the novel as a whole, unraveling the tremendous grit and fierce inner conflicts that come with the pursuit of revenge. Though Radha is known throughout Mumbai as the "best batsman" and Manju the "second best batsman," this is shockingly upturned, a move from which no one ever quite recovers. Meanwhile, as Manju in particular comes of age, he wrestles with what the sport demands and what he's willing to sacrifice in turn.
