"The Association of Small Bombs," by Karan Mahajan

    This story is set in India--mostly in Delhi--and starts with the explosion of a terrorist bomb in a crowded market place, which kills the two young sons--Tushar and Nakul--of the Khurana family and injures their young Muslim friend, Mansoor. This is in May 1996. We learn who placed the bomb, how he did it, and how an innocent associate is arrested and tortured by the police. The bomb-maker escapes arrest and re-appears years later in the story.
    The novel is divided into several long sections, running from the initial bomb explosion in 1996 to October 2003.
    After the initial brief introduction, there is a section on how the Khurana family copes, or fail to cope, with the loss of their two sons: how the relationship between husband and wife deteriorates and how each is affected by their loss. And then we move on to a longer section on how Mansoor's life develops, and especially his problems with an injury to his arm that occurred when the bomb went off. He goes to a college in California, but eventually returns to India because the injury to his arm makes typing on a computer unbearably painful. The novel then follows Mansoor through his emotional difficulties, his embrace of Islam, his confusion about his identity, and eventually we end up with him becoming a terrorist himself, determined to right the wrongs that he sees Muslims suffering in Hindu India.
    I hate to say it, as the novel is certainly well-written and explores with a great deal of understanding the psyches of the various characters, but for me it did become a little tedious. Nevertheless I stuck with it until the end as I wanted to know how the story worked its way out. And it definitely took some unexpected turns.
    In addition to the terrorist psychology, there is much about the social and family life of middle/upper class Indian society. The contempt for the police, for example, torture in the prisons, the ineffectiveness of the justice system.
     The British novelist and critic, Johm Crace, describes the book as "..unusually wise, tender, and generous," and a review in The Guardian concludes as follows: "In fact, for all the big, urgent issues explored, the default position is actually Indian family saga – there’s even a namecheck for Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Mahajan is on surer ground here and has a brilliant eye for the self-absorption of upper middle-class Delhi life. It means there’s plenty to enjoy in The Association of Small Bombs, as well as much that will shock, perturb and provoke thought. But it never quite explodes into the important novel Mahajan wants it to be."