Caroline Moore

Among the Members of a Quartet

An Equal Music

By

Phoenix House 384pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

Vikram Seth ought to have won the Booker Prize in 1993 – or so most of those who have read A Suitable Boy will surely agree. It gives a superb portrait of a whole nation in a time of political, social and cultural turmoil; but it is for the human portraits that it will be loved and remembered. Mrs Rupa Mehra, the lachrymose, exasperating, transparently manipulative and infinitely touching mother, who is seeking a suitable boy as a husband for her daughter Lata, is a glorious comic creation.

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