Better Man

All's well that ends well in Kaikurussi, the storybook Indian village that serves as the setting for Nair's charming debut novel. Bhasi, the village house painter, tells part of the tale. Driven out of his teacher's position in another village a decade earlier when he got himself mixed up in a disastrously miscalculated romantic entanglement, Bhasi hopped on a random bus and ended up in Kaikurussi. Since then, he has happily functioned as the village eccentric and off-hours healer. As a healer, he meets his wife, Damayanti, and his path crosses that of Mukundan Nair. Middle-aged Mukundan departed the village at age 18 to escape his tyrannical father, Achuthan, and left his mother to deal with her violent, adulterous husband. Now, having retired from his job as a factory manager, he's come back to the house he inherited when his mother died--Achuthan lives across the street with his mistress--only to find it haunted by her vengeful spirit. Practicing a folk version of psychotherapy, Bhasi manages to restore Mukundan's self-confidence, so much so that Mukundan takes up with Anjana, a beautiful young schoolteacher. Anjana is not fully divorced yet, but Mukundan is willing to risk the social faux pas, until he is invited to Power House Ramakrishnan's house for a meeting of the Community Hall Committee. Power House is the richest man in the village, having won the lottery, and he wants to seize Bhasi's land to put up a community hall. Will Mukundan, flattered by Power House's attention, betray his friend and girlfriend? Nair has the magical ability to make all of her readers feel, briefly, like Kaikurussi villagers in this humorous, imaginative and gracefully written novel. Agent, Laura Susijn. (June)