Em and the Big Hoom

The narrator, a son who is never named, calls his parents Em and the Big Hoom. Em, born Imelda, smokes beedis, sings, invents nicknames and codes, and holds the family of four in her orbit; when her bipolar illness takes hold she becomes frightening and destructive, with harm to herself and those around her. Sitting with her in a psychiatric ward, and reading the letters and diary she kept as a young woman, he tries to work out how she met and fell for his father Augustine, and how she came to lose her mind. Moving back and forth in time, the novel follows the Mendes family, the parents, a daughter and a son, through years of caring for her in a small city flat.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

240 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

India

First published

2012 by Aleph Book Company

Author's age

46 when first published

ISBN

9788192328027 (Aleph Book Company, India)

9780143124764 (Penguin Books, United States)

9780670923588 (Viking, United Kingdom)

9780241966518 (Penguin Books, United Kingdom)

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