A Bad Character

Our narrator is "twenty and untouched" when her mother dies. Sent by her absentee father to live with a relative in a modest New Delhi apartment, she is ill-equipped to resist the allure of the rich and rebellious young man who approaches her one day at a cafe. He is a few years older, and from a different social class, but they both yearn to break free of tradition. As they drive around Delhi--eating, making love, falling apart--he introduces her to an India that she never knew existed, and will never be able to forget. Told in a voice at once gritty and lyrical, A Bad Character is an astounding book, an intimate and raw exploration of female transformation in contemporary India, and an unforgettable hymn to a dangerous, exhilarating city.