![]() First edition | |
Author | Manu Joseph |
---|---|
Country | India |
Language | English |
Genre | Fiction Drama |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 2012 |
Media type | Print (paperback, hardback) |
Pages | 352 |
ISBN | 9781443416375 |
The Illicit Happiness of Other People is a 2012 drama novel by Manu Joseph. [1] [2]
Set in the Madras of the 1990s. Ousep Chacko is a journalist and a wannabe novelist who routinely wakes the neighbors after drinking sprees and then threatens to hang himself from his lungi. His wife, Mariamma, talks to walls; Thoma, their son, has fallen for an older girl. The family, though disintegrating, is united in its grief, for three years ago Thoma's 17-year-old brother, Unni, fell from the balcony. A desperate Ousep sets out to solve the mystery of his son's supposed suicide. [3]
Malcolm Forbes of Star Tribune wrote: "What could have been another standard tale of a dysfunctional family coming apart at the seams turns out to be something far more complex and clever." [4] Martin Patriquin of Maclean's reviewed, "Visceral and at times hilarious, Illicit is an indictment of a society that has surrendered to the baser instincts of its men." [5] Sam Sacks of The Wall Street Journal said that the novel "injects dark, rueful laughter into an immensely touching story of loss." [6]
Arminta Wallace of The Irish Times called it a "blend of philosophical inquiry and tart social commentary" which is "smartly written and consistently entertaining". [7] Deepanjana Pal of Daily News and Analysis wrote that the novel is "fun, despite all the unhappiness that riddles the novel, and Joseph avoids the curse of the second novel with panache." [8] Chrsity Edwall of The Daily Telegraph wrote: "Joseph twists what I feared would be a book for people wanting a second White Tiger (that is, local son makes good in a shady world) into a cocktail of character, culture and religion." [9]
Sir William Wallace was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence.
David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite Jest was cited by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years".
The Toronto Star is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands division.
Maclean's, founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian perspective on current affairs and to "entertain but also inspire its readers". Rogers Media, the magazine's publisher since 1994, announced in September 2016 that Maclean's would become a monthly beginning January 2017, while continuing to produce a weekly issue on the Texture app. In 2019, the magazine was bought by its current publisher, St. Joseph Communications.
Mark Steyn is a Canadian author and a radio and television presenter. He has written several books, including The New York Times bestsellersAmerica Alone, After America, and Broadway Babies Say Goodnight. In the US he has guest-hosted the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show, as well as Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, on which he regularly appeared as a guest and fill-in host. In 2021, Steyn began hosting his own show on British news channel GB News. He left GB News in early February 2023, saying that the channel wanted him to pay fines issued by the UK media regulator Ofcom, which was investigating complaints of COVID-19 vaccination scepticism aired on The Mark Steyn Show. He has since moved his show to his own website.
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories is a semi-autobiographical collection of three stories by American author Norman Maclean (1902–1990) published in 1976. It was the first work of fiction published by the University of Chicago Press.
Hugo P. Hamilton is an Irish writer. Hamilton was born and raised in Dublin with an Irish father and a German mother. Hamilton has written plays, short stories, novels and memoirs.
Nicolle Wallace is an American television political commentator and author. She is the anchor of the MSNBC news and politics program Deadline: White House and a former co-host of the ABC daytime talk show The View. As a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, she is a frequent on-air contributor to the programs Today, The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle and Morning Joe.
Rachel Cusk is a British novelist and writer.
Mar Thoma V was the 5th Malankara Metropolitan who served puthenkoor from 1728 to 8 May 1765. He was born as Ousep to the Pallippuram branch of the Pakalomattom family, situated in Andoor, Marangattupilly, where his father served as administration chief of Vadakkumkur Kings. He was ordained in 1728 and served as Malankara Metropolitan for 37 years until his death on May 8, 1765. His final resting place is Niranam St. Mary’s Church. His tenure faced numerous challenges and conflicts with bishops sent from the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate in Antioch, resulting in some of these Syriac bishops being banished from the country and forced to return.
Chris Eaton is the founder and lead vocalist of Toronto-based indie rock band Rock Plaza Central, as well as a novelist.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir is an Irish writer and poet.
Aminatta Forna, OBE, is a British writer of Scottish and Sierra Leonean ancestry. Her first book was a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest (2002). Since then she has written four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013) and Happiness (2018). In 2021 she published a collection of essays, The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion. (2021), which was a new genre for her.
The Fault in Our Stars is a novel by John Green. It is his fourth solo novel, and sixth novel overall. It was published on January 10, 2012. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, in which the nobleman Cassius says to Brutus: "Men at some time were masters of their fates, / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The story is narrated by Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl with thyroid cancer that has affected her lungs. Hazel is forced by her parents to attend a support group where she subsequently meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player, amputee, and survivor of osteosarcoma.
The Hindu Literary Prize or The Hindu Best Fiction Award, established in 2010, is an Indian literary award sponsored by The Hindu Literary Review which is part of the newspaper The Hindu. It recognizes Indian works in English and English translation. The first year, 2010, the award was called The Hindu Best Fiction Award. Starting in 2018 a non-fiction category was included.
Manu Joseph is an Indian journalist and writer. He is the former editor of Open magazine.
Annie Zaidi is an English-language writer from India. Her novel, Prelude To A Riot, won the Tata Literature Live! Awards for Book of the Year 2020. In 2019, she won The Nine Dots Prize for her work Bread, Cement, Cactus and in 2018 she won The Hindu Playwright Award for her play, Untitled-1. Her non-fiction debut, a collection of essays, Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales, was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2010.
Katiyabaaz, released under the alternate title Powerless for English-speaking audiences, is a 2013 Indian Hindi documentary film directed by Deepti Kakkar and Fahad Mustafa about the problem of power theft in Kanpur. Released in India on 22 August 2014, the film is shot in Kanpur city, which faces long power cuts, giving rise to the profession of Loha Singh, a local electricity thief or katiyabaaz in localities like Chaman Ganj. He provides illegal electricity connections to people, while Ritu Maheshwari, MD of KESCo, Kanpur Electricity Supply Company, tries to tackle the issue of rampant electricity theft.
Assholes: A Theory is a non-fiction book written by Aaron James in 2012. Aaron James received a doctorate from Harvard associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, and he attempts a precise academic definition of the term. James is also the author of another book, referred to as Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy.
The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics is a 2011 non-fiction book by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, published by the company PublicAffairs. It discusses how politicians gain and retain political power.