Brilliantly comic and almost unbearably moving, Jerry Pinto's Em and the Big Hoom is one of the most powerful and original fiction debuts of recent years. She was always Em to us. There may have been a time when we called her something ordinary like Mummy, or Ma, but I don't remember. She was Em, and our father, sometimes, was the Big Hoom. In a tiny flat in Bombay Imelda Mendes - Em to her children - holds her family in thrall with her flamboyance, her manic affection and her cruel candour. Her husband - to whom she was ...
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Brilliantly comic and almost unbearably moving, Jerry Pinto's Em and the Big Hoom is one of the most powerful and original fiction debuts of recent years. She was always Em to us. There may have been a time when we called her something ordinary like Mummy, or Ma, but I don't remember. She was Em, and our father, sometimes, was the Big Hoom. In a tiny flat in Bombay Imelda Mendes - Em to her children - holds her family in thrall with her flamboyance, her manic affection and her cruel candour. Her husband - to whom she was once 'Buttercup' - and her two children must bear her 'microweathers', her swings from laugh-out-loud joy to dark malevolence. In Em and the Big Hoom, the son begins to unravel the story of his parents: the mother he loves and hates in the same moment and the unusual man who courted, married and protected her - as much from herself as from the world. "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". (Amitav Ghosh). "Pinto chases the elusive portrait of a mother who simply said of herself that she was mad. As I read this 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 that I have read coming out of India". (Kiran Desai). "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). Jerry Pinto has been a mathematics tutor, school librarian and journalist and is now associated with MelJol, an NGO that works in the sphere of child rights. He has edited several anthologies including, most recently, an anthology on his native city, Mumbai.
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Add this copy of Em and the Big Hoom to cart. $1.99, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Penguin Books.
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Add this copy of Em and the Big Hoom: a Novel to cart. $1.99, good condition, Sold by Goodwill of Colorado rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Penguin Books.
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Seller's Description:
This item is in overall good condition. Covers and dust jackets are intact but may have minor wear including slight curls or bends to corners as well as cosmetic blemishes including stickers. Pages are intact but may have minor highlighting/ writing. Binding is intact; however, spine may have slight wear overall. Minor shelf wear overall. Please note that all items are donated goods and are in used condition. Orders shipped Monday through Friday! Your purchase helps put people to work and learn life skills to reach their full potential. Orders shipped Monday through Friday. Your purchase helps put people to work and learn life skills to reach their full potential. Thank you!
Add this copy of Em and the Big Hoom to cart. $1.99, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Penguin Books.
Add this copy of Em and the Big Hoom: a Novel to cart. $2.00, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill of the Olympics rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from TACOMA, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Penguin Books.
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Fair. An acceptable and readable copy. All pages are intact, and the spine and cover are also intact. This item may have light highlighting, writing or underlining through out the book, curled corners, missing dust jacket and or stickers.
Add this copy of Em and the Big Hoom: a Novel to cart. $2.96, very good condition, Sold by 8trax Media rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Mansfield, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Penguin Books.
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Very Good. The devastatingly original debut novel from a winner of the 2016 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. "Profoundly moving...I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this." â”Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace First published by a small press in India, Jerry Pinto's debut novel has already taken the literary world by storm. Suffused with compassion, humor, and hard-won wisdom, Em and the Big Hoom is a modern masterpiece, and its American publication is certain to be one of the major literary events of the season. Meet Imelda and Augustine, orâ”as our young narrator calls his unusual parentsâ”Em and the Big Hoom. Most of the time, Em smokes endless beedis and sings her way through life. She is the sun around which everyone else orbits. But as enchanting and high-spirited as she can be, when Em's bipolar disorder seizes her she becomes monstrous, sometimes with calamitous consequences for herself and others. This accomplished debut is graceful and urgent, with a one-of-a-kind voice that will stay with readers long after the last page.
