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Dear reader,
Jeffrey Archer, the best-selling author a generation of Indians grew up reading, and whose books line footpaths and populate bookstores across the country, died this week.
It was Archer’s writing that first introduced me to thrillers. Clifton Chronicles, a seven-book multi-generational historical fiction series that followed Harry Clifton and the Barrington family from 1920 to the end of the 20th century, marked the beginning of my journey with Archer. I also enjoyed the William Warwick series, which followed William Warwick’s five-decade career from beat officer in the 1970s to Police Commissioner. I would often anticipate a typical conclusion, but there would always be a surprising turn of events.
There was no doubt that Archer enjoyed dizzying success. According to the BBC, he sold over 300 million books over his five-decade career. His latest book, Adam and Eve, was scheduled to be released on October 6, and he had said it would be his final novel.
But Archer was more than just a master storyteller. He was also a controversial man. He was jailed for perjury in 2001 for having lied in court more than a decade earlier when a newspaper accused him of paying money to a sex worker. He was imprisoned for four years.
What do you, as a reader, do with this knowledge? Whether it is Archer, a Conservative MP jailed for perjury; Neil Gaiman, who has faced allegations of sexual assault; or Rudyard Kipling, whose work and views have long been described as racist; does knowing more about the person behind the work change the way you read it? Do you continue reading or do you abandon the books?
Is it credible to separate the art from the artist? There is no straightforward answer to this question. A few of us are able to; most of us cannot. But the most honest thing to do is to acknowledge both — the pleasure the books gave us as well as the uncomfortable truths about the men who wrote them. With that knowledge, here is a collection of reviews and interviews with Archer by The Hindu over the years.
Books of the week
Rebecca F. Kuang’s latest book is Taipei Story (HarperCollins India). She rose to fame with her fantasy trilogy The Poppy War, followed it up with the blockbuster novel Yellowface, which was about the publishing world, and then with her satirical take on academia Katabasis. Kuang said in an interview to Anushree Nande about the genres she explores, “Genre is such a flexible, useful thing. It’s like a colour on a palette that you can use to sharpen or exaggerate different elements of something you want to crack open.”
In The End of Everything (Serpent’s Tail), the giant of British fantasy-fiction M. John Harrison’s latest novel which made its way to the 2026 Booker Prize shortlist, the protagonist Phillip Tennent feels the world slipping away after a bizarre event. What can one do about it but just go with the flow? Vasudevan Mukunth writes in his review, “The point of The End of Everything is that there’s no one final truth. It’s just evermore relativism — moral, physical, whatever. The aliens aren’t really invading. They’re just there, so are the people, and they seem to have no use for each other. Harrison shuts the door on the aliens’ history by making it pointless even as he throws the door open to how much humans still don’t know, and may never.”
While Ambedkar’s centrality to the Dalit movement is undeniable, Gandhi too played an important role in making untouchability a central question of Indian politics. He increasingly challenged caste orthodoxy despite fierce opposition from conservative Hindus. That we need both Gandhi and Ambedkar in the fight for Dalit civil rights is what Ramachandra Guha endorses in his new book, Arguments With Gandhi (HarperCollins India). Read an excerpt here.
Luke Kennard has also been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his absurdist novel, Black Bag (John Murray). In an interview with Simar Basin, Kennard says, “I think we have to meet the times we’re writing in... I was worried, when I was writing it (from around 2021) that it was going to take me years and that all the things I was angry about would have moved on or changed and that it would be obsolete. But, thankfully, the tech bros are still pushing the same garbage. So, thanks to their utter spiritual and intellectual paucity, my novel stayed relevant.”
Villa Coco by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer (Hachette India) follows Geoffrey, whose college adviser finds him a job overseas. Chintan Girish Modi says in his review, “This funny and soulful coming-of-age story ambles along in the first half, matching the pace of life in Geoffrey’s new environment. The languorous prose will delight readers who like to read a few pages at a time, then put the book away to dream about the world the author has created. But it may test the patience of someone who gobbles up words as if time were running out.”
Vasudevan Mukunth’s reviewsA Mild Case of Mass Hysteria (Penguin SEA), a new graphic novel by Singaporean writer Felix Cheong, illustrated by Ritwick Roy and Riddhi Trivedi. He says, “It is 1967 and Singapore is creaking to life under the weight of history. But then there is the Koro epidemic, a real event, and Cheong, Roy, and Trivedi are on their way to a rollocking tale that uses sexual and bodily panics as metaphors to make sense of the forces of war and empire, which are otherwise too large to dramatise directly.”
Nistula Hebbar writes that Akshay Chavan’s The Wealth Networks: How Roads, Rivers and Seas Shaped India (Penguin Random House) “goes beyond history as a telling of the rise and fall of empires through the deeds and battles of its rulers to explain why kingdoms came up in specific sites, which goods enabled their enrichment, how they acquired economic leverage, and how certain religions spread.” Written in an easy, accessible way, the book illustrates India’s connectivity with the world from ancient times.
The photo-illustrated essay book, Reel Duniya, Real Duniya: Cinema, Memory, and Leisure in Laggere, by Eshwari R. and Mahima Gowda, offers a glimpse into the film culture of a working-class neighbourhood in Bengaluru. Preeti Zachariah writes about it.
Nightstand
I’m reading an old book by Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry. It is different from what I usually read, but I dove into it in the spirit of trying new things. The authority of a character, Elizabeth Zott, and the firmness of her stance has left me feeling a bit uncomfortable with my own sense of authority and power. I aspire to become like another character Zott – brave and unapologetically myself.
For complaints or compliments, you can mail me at swati.ks@thehindu.co.in. Until next time.