The Week

A Times of India Sunday Life Pick of the week: Cyclone. This violent depression of Nature becomes a metaphor for the sweeping changes that strike our lives in Anita Nair’s new novel, “Lessons In Forgetting”…. her most intense book….an intimate exploration of duty, betrayal and the frail beauty of second chances…these are powerful emotional chords… – Times of India

Satirical, topical, reflective of new-age desi definitions, Lesson in Forgetting, Anita Nair’s latest novel, innovatively adapts to cyclones. Opting for a larger canvas this time, Nair picks her way through emotional upheavals and social asides while toning down sentimentality to just the right pitch.

As youth matures faster and ageing reverses with technological help and psycho-speak, mid-life crises are no longer explicable with a one-liner about ‘change’ or ‘that time of life’. To zero in on not just that difficult gray-area vintage but to contextualise, inlay with detail and tell multiple stories that weave into a central feeling that can resonate in readers’ hearts need that right mix of literary lineage and storytelling skills.From an author who speaks knowingly of better men and better women, here is a better book.