The Death of Vishnu

Praise

"A remarkable literary debut. . . a finely observed comedy of manners that evolves into searing tragedy, rendered in a time of wry detachment that paradoxically illuminates its characters' essential humanity. . .Written with limpid grace, in a simple, straightforward, irresistible flow. . . This first novel reads like the work of a highly skilled and experienced practitioner of the writer's craft. . . Read Manil Suri not because he's Indian, not necessarily because you are interested in India, but because he has written an exceptionally good novel, and there will be a lot more where it came from."
—Shashi Tharoor, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Enchanting. . . Suri's novel achieves an eerie and memorable transcendence."
—Paul Gray, Time

"Witness the debut journey of a remarkable writer. . . [Suri] unlayers the jealousies, vanities, longings and embarrassments of ordinary people with a combination of ruthlessness, insight, humor, and wickedly perfect pitch, as well as an almost tactile sense of language that can neither be faked nor learned. For once, all the hype about a major new literary voice isn't wrong."
—Entertainment Weekly

"[A] deft and confident first novel. . . The Death of Vishnu reminds me of the work of an earlier writer, the deliberately modest and beautifully constructed novels of R. K. Narayan. . . the finely burnished plots, the oblique irony and understated prose; above all, the sense of equipoise. All this The Death of Vishnu has, and more."
—Michael Gorra, New York Times Book Review

"Enchanting. . . In the complex world created by Suri, few human, or even divine, motivations are completely pure. . . Suri's penetration of his character's lives is as precise and cunning as that of a master surgeon like J. M. Coetzee."
—Anna Mundow, Boston Sunday Globe

"Just as Vishnu seems both a lowly janitor and a member of the Hindu pantheon, so, too, does this book function as a work of gritty social realism and a poetic tribute to what is grand and mysterious in the human psyche. . . Suri's book [is] remarkable: It exposes human foibles at their most unpleasant, while retaining compassion for its characters, and—without any false elegiac rambling—reveals the beauty and depth of Hindu mythology."
—Emily Carter, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"[A] full, sweet-scented novel. . . . Juxtaposing the mundane with the comic, Suri evokes these characters with intelligence, compassion and humor. The comedic exposure of their vulnerabilities and frailties, their pettiness and silliness, ultimately reveals the poignant beauty and grace of their essential humanness."
—Lee Siegel, Washington Post Book World

"[A] delightful and rich first novel, a lyrical ditty on death and life set mainly within the confines of one apartment building in the realm of everyday madness that is modern Bombay. . . [Suri takes] in effect a small-town story and plot[s] it along the vertical axis of a Bombay walkup to produce a lovely pattern of miniature riot and cosmic redemption."
—Claudia Rosett, Wall Street Journal

"Few have invested their fiction with such luminous language, insight into character and grasp of cultural construct as Suri does in his debut. . . This fluid novel is an irresistible blend of realism, mysticism and religious metaphor, a parable of the universal conditions of human life."
—Publishers Weekly

"Vibrantly alive, beautifully written, full of wonderfully rich and deeply human characters. . . . The depiction of the Asranis and the Pathaks, in all their convincingly human awfulness, brings to mind such masters of scrupulous meanness as Flaubert and Flannery O'Connor."
—Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours

"A wonder of a book. From the first page I could tell that this is an astonishing debut, sure to win readers."
—Amy Tan, author of Saving Fish From Drowning

"A man named Vishnu lies dying on the staircase of a Mumbai apartment building. . . . Through the maneuverings of the building's denizens, Manil Suri has created an intimate and intricate portrait of life in this metropolis."
—Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred Games

"Sympathetic, penetrating, comic and moving, this fine and unusual first novel unexpectedly braids Hindu mythology and traditions into the daily life of a broad cast of wonderfully drawn characters. The result draws on the best storytelling traditions of both east and west."
—Andrea Barrett, author of The Air We Breathe

“Manil Suri's The Death of Vishnu finds the Universe in a block of Bombay flats; it is tender, caustic, witty, and inspired.”
—Jim Crace, author of The Pesthouse