The City Son
Samrat Upadhyay
ISBN: 9781616953812
Published: June, 2014
Pricing
Paperback $16.00
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Description
Acclaimed and award-winning author Samrat Upadhyay—the first Nepali-born fiction writer writing in English to be published in the West—has crafted a spare, understated work examining a taboo subject: a scorned wife’s obsession with her husband’s illegitimate son. When Didi discovers that her husband, the Masterji, has been hiding ...
Acclaimed and award-winning author Samrat Upadhyay—the first Nepali-born fiction writer writing in English to be published in the West—has crafted a spare, understated work examining a taboo subject: a scorned wife’s obsession with her husband’s illegitimate son. When Didi discovers that her husband, the Masterji, has been hiding his beautiful lover and their young son Tarun in a nearby city, she takes the Masterji back into her grasp and expels his second family. Tarun’s mother, heartsick and devastated, slowly begins to lose her mind, and Tarun turns to Didi for the mothering he longs for. But as Tarun gets older, Didi’s domination of the boy turns from the emotional to the physical, and the damages she inflicts spiral outward, threatening to destroy Tarun’s one true chance at true happiness. Potent, disturbing, and gorgeously stark in its execution, The City Son is a novel not soon forgotten.
Media
“Upadhyay tells his story with simple and direct prose ... the multicharacter narration adds dramatic depth. ”
—Publishers Weekly
“Samrat Upadhyay has created a remarkable work, one to be savored and remembered. ”
—Praise for the work of Samrat Upadyay from Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply
“Subtle and spiritually complex . . . Mr. Upadhyay’s stories bring us into contact with a world that is somehow both far away and very familiar. ”
—Praise for the work of Samrat Upadhyay from The New York Times
“[Upadhyay is] among the smoothest and most noiseless of contemporary writers. ”
–Praise for Samrat Upadhyay from The Los Angeles Times
“In an assured and subtle manner, Upadhyay anchors small yet potent epiphanies in a place called Kathmandu, and quietly calls it home. ”
–Praise for the work of Samrat Upadhyay from Publishers Weekly
“The arc of Upadhyay’s narrative is like that of a soap opera, though rather more lurid ... the human cost of the quasi-incest is exceptionally high. ”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[The City Son] examines the vengeance of a truly evil woman scorned…Not for the faint of heart.”
—Booklist on City Son
“Fearless ... There's an eerie element of black magic in Didi's Svengali-like manipulation that evokes the domestic horror novels of Shirley Jackson. This superb book stages an intensely powerful showdown.”
—The Wall Street Journal on The City Son
“Reading Samrat Upadhyay's disturbing new novel, The City Son, is the literary equivalent of watching a horror film. His style is assured and unadorned. The occasional metaphor, such as "this dead blackbird inside her," arrives to arresting effect. Upadhyay leaves us holding our breaths.”