Reviews of The Strike:
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India Currents selects The Strike as a Best Book of 2007:
Dec 2007
'Of the many books I’ve been privileged to review for India Currents in 2007, the one that impressed me the most was The Strike by Anand Mahadevan. Written as a drama of errors that segues into a coming-of-age tale, The Strike is carried off with a sensitivity and empathy not often found in debut novels. Too often adults fail to recall what it was like to be a pre-teen in a decidedly adult world. While 12-year-old Hari’s world 20 years ago has unique history attached to it, the basic confusions and miscommunications of the age remain common to all children. The series of unfortunate events that challenges the charming and curious protagonist carefully and realistically tells a mature story that does not allow the reader to be a remote observer; adolescence and its all-too-familiar growing pains revive memories we may have forgotten and fill our hearts with knowing anticipation.' | |
Books in Canada:
'Complex Indian society emerges in this vivid tale about a boy whose adventures play out against a tumultuous 1980s backdrop....When Hari looks out the train window “like normal people” (his mother’s words), he sees beauty: “A large red moon hung low in the sky and the small pools of water they passed shone like shards of glass flung on the hard plateau by a giant’s hand. The engine hooted, and in the distance, small points of light moved slowly along the dark shadows of the land.” But when he climbs inside the engine he sees the “coarseness of the interior. Gone were the clean lines and the sleek finish . . . teal-green paint had been slapped over the walls and the ceiling so that it had dried in rivulets. The windows and consoles had been attached to the frame by black tar that oozed and bubbled.” India in all its contradictions springs to life through the eyes of this mischievous boy.' | |
City Masala:
Feb 2007
'Mahadevan's language often enters the realm of the poetic, allowing the reader to taste the slick oil of sizzling puris and the salted rust of trains...The book could have continued for another 100 pages, and Mahadevan has the talent and the right words to make it even more enjoyable.' | |
India Currents:
Feb 2007
' With The Strike, Mahadevan has cleverly written a book about an adolescent without targeting younger readers. Clearly, while this is a piece of fiction that rings true in the portrayal of its main character, it is written for a more mature audience that should recall the emotions, uncertainties, and turmoil of that stage of life....In The Strike, the complicated business of maneuvering through the adult world of explosive politics, misunderstood cultural variances, and ambiguous messages is Hari’s principal task, and that task is beautifully written and presented. Hari’s world of 1987 may not parallel a pre-teen’s world of today, but his growing pains are universal and unfolded in such a way that the reader cannot judge Hari alone. We all have shared those pains in one way or another.' | |
Quill and Quire:
Jan/Feb 2007
'The novel charts the turmoil within both the nation and Hari himself...The changes within Hari take on an urgency through the careful use of language that gives not only the sensory aspects of his journey, but also the emotional ones.'
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Xtra!:
Dec 21, 2006.
'As a coming-of-age story, it's a delicate protrait of a boy's inner world--his core of innocence--besieged by the seething world around him....The Strike is a strong debut by Toronto writer Anand Mahadevan.' | |
The Globe and Mail:
Dec 2, 2006.
'...this tale is less about family dysfunction than the hypocrisies of a whole society...This novel opens with great richness and promise, offering arresting character work and vivid pictures of a fraught society.' | |
M.G. Vassanji:
'A wonderfully accomplished debut, and a tender story about childhood and family that is also evocative of a whole era.'
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Gail Anderson-Dargatz:
'Anand Mahadevan engages all the reader's senses with writing that is vivid and exotic, very often erotic, and touched throughout with gentle humour. He writes with such compassion that while reading this book you will undoubtedly nod in recognition of your own family and loves and sometimes foolish self. We'll see a lot more of Mahadevan, I think.' | |
