A portrait of a nation on the cusp of a new age. A group of young people converge in Mumbai after an election brings the divisive Bharat Party to power: Naren, a jaded Wall Street consultant lured home by the promise of "better days," is accompanied by Amanda, a restless New Englander eager to live her ideals through a social impact fellowship in a slum. Meanwhile, Naren's brother Rohit, the charismatic talent scout, sets out to explore his roots in the countryside and falls in with the fiery young men that drive the Hindu nationalist machine. As they each come to grips with the new India, their journeys coalesce into a riveting milieu characterized by brutal debates and desires.
Auspicious ... Rege captures his contradictions—his rough passion and his eloquence, his dreams, his insecurities and crude bigotries—with a cool dispassion that exemplifies her fully realized characterizations ... If one had a quibble with Quarterlife, it would be that the debating is so extensive that it sometimes overwhelms the scene-setting ... The scope of the book’s ideas and the textured rendering of its characters contribute an oceanic feeling of simultaneous scale and intimacy.
A fearless achievement in multifarious listening ... An urgent, vital orchestration ... One of the novel’s achievements is its commitment to patience, to a wise narrative gradualism ... A rich, allusive, sometimes demanding novel.
A colorful, panoramic portrait of life in contemporary India, the literary equivalent of a colorful, bustling Diego Rivera mural ... Devika Rege has created fascinating leading characters whose identity crises are set against a country going through its own identity crisis.
