peteg's blog - noise - books - 2016 05 07 KaranMahajan FamilyPlanning

Karan Mahajan: Family Planning.

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Kindle. This is his first novel and I prefer its manic comedy to the studied quasi-objective fatalism of his recent The Association of Small Bombs. There is a sequence in the style of i hate the internet and some forward pointers that the author was happy to let dangle. Why does he have it in for Bryan Adams? (Doesn't he know that Rick Astley is the person to mock?) He is at his funniest when toying with the politician's large family: the eldest is nicknamed "Torn Condom", the "father of the nation" is charged with creating a constituency. The family's power dynamics are lovingly detailed, like Mahajan was almost there. The ending just strangely falls away.

Here he is in the wilds of the internet with Practice.