Books of the Month

'Transmission' by Hari Kunzru

Kunzru's first novel, The Impressionist, which was much acclaimed and secured his place on Granta's list of the twenty best young writers in the UK, was a sprawling historical novel set in India and the UK. It was full of colour, lavish description, and vivid settings. His publishers must have hoped for more of the same. Transmission, however, is - bravely - very different. For a start it's shorter, better constructed, and less apt to try squeezing in every last detail. It also toes more assuredly that line between likelihood and improbability which always makes fiction interesting.

The contemporary story follows geeky Arjun Mehta, who leaves India with his family’s expectations on his shoulders when he lands a dream job testing computer security systems in the United States. When the industry takes a downturn however, he’s faced with losing his job. Appalled at the prospect of having to return in shame to India (especially as he's, er, accidentally led them to believe he's more of a high flyer than he actually is), he hits on the idea of creating a mischievous virus which he then plans to ‘crack’, impressing his bosses into reinstating him. Except that the virus, named after the Bollywood starlet Leela who he moons after, promptly proceeds, in its various manifestations, to unleash more global chaos than Arjun could ever have imagined… The book follows the interconnecting stories of Leela's creator, the actress herself (struggling with family expectations of her own while filming in Scotland), and Guy Swift, a thoroughly unlikeable branding mogul for whom the damage wreaked by the virus is pretty much the final straw.

You don't have to be an afficionado of internet technology to enjoy Transmission. At one level it's a story of human hopes and ambitions, the expectations of others, and how they are both often thwarted but, sometimes, succeed.

Susan Tranter

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