Em and the Big Hoom: A Novel

Praise for Em and the Big Hoom: A Novel

“Em and the Big Hoom is a beautiful book, a child’s-eye view of madness and sorrow, full of love, pain, and, unaccountably, much wild comedy.  One of the very best books to come out of India in a long, long, time.” – Salman Rushdie, Best of the Booker winner for Midnight’s Children

‘A delightful debut . . . Written with genuine compassion and sincerity, while a sprinkling of black humour ensures it is never overly sentimental’ - Financial Times

‘Jerry Pinto's prose is lively and incisive . . . moments of great humour here as well as moments of tenderness and poignancy’ - Herald

‘Powerful’ - Sunday Times

‘Delightful … Pinto is quite a genius with dialogue’ - Guardian

“Pinto chases the elusive portrait of a mother who simply said of herself that she was mad.  As I read the novel, that also portrays a very tender marriage and the life of a Goan family in Bombay, it drowned me.  I mean that in the best way.  It plunged me into a world so vivid and capricious, that when I finished, I found something had shifted and changed within myself.  This is a world of magnified and dark emotion.  The anger is a primal force, the sadness wild and raw.  Against this, the jokes are hilarious, reckless, free falling… This is a rare, brilliant book,  one that is wonderfully different from any other I that I have read coming out of India.” – Kiran Desai, author of The Inheritance of Loss, Winner of the Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award

“It is utterly persuasive and deeply affecting: stylistically adventurous it is never self-indulgent; although suffused with pain it shows no trace of self-pity.  Parts of it are extremely funny, and its pages are filled with endearing and eccentric characters.  Em and the Big Hoom is a profoundly moving book: I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this.” – Amitav Ghosh, bestselling author of The Glass Palace

‘A near-perfect account of a psychologically troubled mother and the shockwaves felt by her family. Rich and beguiling . . . Within sentences of this touching, funny and calmly shocking narrative, their son makes it clear that he knows about the things that really matter’ - Irish Times

‘Em and the Big Hoom addresses mental illness in everyday lives with powerful originality and humour’ - The Big Issue in the North

“Pinto’s narrative is both brutal and beautiful.” – Business Standard Book Review

"A stunningly beautiful and devastatingly heartbreaking debut novel." - Bookreporter

“Pinto’s engaging debut, ripe with wit and affection, portrays an unforgettable family of four in middleclass, Catholic Mumbai as their lives revolve around their manic-depressive matriarch, Em.”  —  Booklist

“Deeply engrossing, finely-tuned, and told with a moving and luminous clarity, this is a splendid and memorable debut.” – The Hindu

“Although it’s set in India, Em and the Big Hoom is a relevant and resonant book for any audience, anywhjere, transcending territory and nationality even as it reflects upon them.  It is a great big wide novel with a voice so unique and yet, somehow, so familiar that its words ring in your ears long after you’ve left these pages, calling you back, again and again, to a story that demands to be read.” – Lauren Slater, author of Opening Skinner’s Box and Prozac Diary

'Em and the Big Hoom is a joyous read that leaves you chuckling and sad, at once.' – The Asian Age

“Pinto’s prose quicksilvers its way through time and emotions, slipping in wit and pulling out despair elegantly… Every one of Pinto’s characters feels alive and real.” – Dnaindia.com        

“This is a small and beautiful book … Pinto’s writing has startling sweetness” – Asian Review of  Books