Mad is an every day ordinary word. It is compact. It fits into songs. It can become a phrase. But it is different when you have a mad mother. Then the word wakes up from time to time and blinks at you, eyes of fire.
Author
Jerry Pinto
Publisher
Aleph Book Company
Genre
Indian Fiction
Number of Pages
240
“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Summary
The story is about the fascinating Em, or Imelda, the narrator’s mother. Theirs is a family of four. The narrator, his sister Susan, their Mother Em, and their father aka The Big Hoom. They live in Mumbai then Bombay in a small one-bedroom apartment. All of them although have separate lives to live, they circle their mother who is manic-depressive and has suicidal tendencies.
The narrator is trying to have a chat with his mother during the times she is lucid. He wants to know the story of his parents. He is also trying to trace the early indications of her nervous breakdowns. Trying to see where the “madness” began, because he fears he is going to be the next victim of the illness. His greater fear is that his father, who is right now holding the family together, might die before his mother and as the son, the entire responsibility of taking care of his mother, earning money, and managing their lives will come upon his shoulders.
My Review
When I started writing the review, I wasn’t sure what to write because this is a widely read book on bookstagram and hence has been reviews in great depths and quite wonderfully by many bookstagrammers. So I’ll just stick to the highlights.
It’s a tragic story, one that I do not regret reading. The crystal clear honesty and poignancy with which it has been narrated will touch your heart. The narrator doesn’t shy away from his real feelings for his mentally ill mother. He is angry and at times frustrated because he cannot have a normal life.
Jerry Pinto has been highly praised for this book and I was glad to find it was well deserved. The writing is extremely powerful. For proof swipe right and check some powerful snippets from the book. The book will make you laugh and cry.
In Indian writing so far Khushwant Singh’s has been my favorite. And now I’m glad I found another Indian writer whose writing I will look forward to reading.
Final Verdict
A dark-themed but amazing book that talks openly about mental illness and how it is treated in an Indian family.
- Top Quotes from Em and The Big Hoom -
Conversations with Em could be like wandering in a town you had never seen before where every path you take might change course midway and take you with it. You had to keep finding your way back to the main street in order to get anywhere.
Do what your heart tells you. It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake. The only things we regret are the things we did not do.
Marriage is all right. At least the person you’re having a go at is an adult. But motherhood… you’re given something totally dependent, totally in love in with you and it doesn’t seem to come with a manual.
Depression seemed to suggest a state that could be dealt with by ordinary means, by a comedy on the television or an extravagance at a nice shop. It suggested a dip in level ground where you might stumble, a little embarrassed that it should have caught you unawares – a little red-face from the exertion – but otherwise unharmed. Em’s depressions were not like that.
Love is never enough. Madness is enough. It is complete, sufficient unto itself.
At that point I realized what it meant to be a man in India. It meant knowing what one could do and what could only get done.
We could always dismiss what she was saying as an emanation of the madness, not an insult or a hurt or a real critique to be taken seriously.
Suicide was a crime, the only one where you could be punished for failing. So you could be miserable enough to kill yourself but the law will pay no heed to misery.
Mad is an everyday ordinary word. It is compact. It fits into songs. It can become a phrase. But it is different when you have a mad mother. Then the word wakes up from time to time and blinks at you, eyes of fire.
Jerry Pinto
Jerry Pinto is a Mumbai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children's fiction in English, as well as a journalist. His noted works include, Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006) which won the Best Book on Cinema Award at the 54th National Film Awards, Surviving Women (2000) and Asylum and Other Poems (2003). His first novel Em and The Big Hoom was published in 2012.
Books Similar to Em and The Big Hoom
This post contains affiliate links. Read my Disclosure Policy.