THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD

An epic exploration of India’s tumultuous history at four pivotal moments.

Deb’s ambitious third novel opens in a near-future India on the verge of collapse. The country’s technological advances have led to the creation of a “superweapon,” the threat of which has sparked violence across the country. Amid the chaos, a former journalist has been tasked with finding a former colleague who might be in possession of troubling government secrets. Flash backward to 1984, as a mercenary strives to track down a man who might be involved in a plot leading to the real-life Union Carbide disaster. Then further back to 1947, the year of Partition, as a veterinary student is on a search for a Vimana, a mythical airship. And finally back to 1859, as a British army officer is on an expedition to the Himalayan home of the White Mughal, leader of a rogue anti-colonial compound. There are common themes across the sections: a quest narrative, questions of how mysticism and the supernatural intersect with colonial and post-colonial realities, how “small wars stitch together the fabric of the future.” Within each section, there’s a lot to like, particularly in the 1984 section, which ably captures the sectarian divides following Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the American imperialism of Union Carbide’s presence, all wrapped around a pitch-black noir narrative. The near-future sections that bookend the novel are engagingly dystopian, blending cyberpunk’s techno-skepticism with Pynchon-ian intrigue. And overall, Deb has accessed the omnivorous, madcap spirit of Midnight’s Children–era Salman Rushdie. Still, there’s little overt connective narrative tissue across the novel’s four sections; Deb is aspiring for the kaleidoscopic, but the overall feel is of loosely related novellas. It’s a visionary novel for sure but not a tight and cohesive one.

A whip-smart if sprawling exploration of history and mythology.