Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Last Man in Tower
    Unavailable
    Last Man in Tower
    Unavailable
    Last Man in Tower
    Ebook514 pages7 hours

    Last Man in Tower

    By Aravind Adiga

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The magnificent new novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of The White Tiger:

    LONGLISTED FOR THE 2013 IMPAC AWARD.

    Ask any Bombaywallah about Vishram Society - Tower A of the Vishram Co-operative Housing Society - and you will be told that it is unimpeachably pucca. Despite its location close to the airport, under the flight path of 747s and bordered by slums, it has been pucca for some fifty years. But Bombay has changed in half a century - not least its name - and the world in which Tower A was first built is giving way to a new city; a Mumbai of development and new money; of wealthy Indians returning with fortunes made abroad.

    When real estate developer Dharmen Shah offers to buy out the residents of Vishram Society, planning to use the site to build a luxury apartment complex, his offer is more than generous. Initially, though, not everyone wants to leave; many of the residents have lived in Vishram for years, many of them are no longer young. But none can benefit from the offer unless all agree to sell. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shah's way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse, but as the demolition deadline looms, Masterji's neighbours - friends who have become enemies, acquaintances turned co-conspirators - may stop at nothing to score their payday.

    A suspense-filled story of money and power, luxury and deprivation; a rich tapestry peopled by unforgettable characters, not least of which is Bombay itself, Last Man in Tower opens up the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of a great city - ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtlantic Books
    Release dateJun 16, 2011
    ISBN9781848877863
    Unavailable
    Last Man in Tower
    Author

    Aravind Adiga

    Aravind Adiga was born in 1974 in Madras (now Chennai) and grew up in Mangalore in the south of India. He was educated at Columbia University in New York and Magdalen College, Oxford. His articles have appeared in publications including the New Yorker, the Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Times of India. His first novel, The White Tiger, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2008. He is also the author of Last Man in Tower and Selection Day.

    Read more from Aravind Adiga

    Related to Last Man in Tower

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Chronicles From The Land Of The Happiest People On Earth Review – Nigeria Unmasked

      Oct 14, 2021

      Wole Soyinka won the Nobel prize for literature in 1986, the first black person to win the award. He is perhaps the most versatile of African writers, equally at home in all genres; his dramatic masterpieces, such as Kongi’s Harvest and Death and the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Take Her Word(s) For It

      Apr 9, 2022

      Take Her Word(s) For It
      3 min read

    • Article

      Yangsze Choo: Memories of Malaya

      Dec 21, 2020

      In her two New York Times bestselling novels, Yangsze Choo’s historical fiction about colonial Malaya is suffused with local legends, superstitions, and customs, a magical realism seamlessly interwoven with unusual plots involving mysterious murders,

      4 min read

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      From Riches To Rags

      May 14, 2020

      From Riches To Rags
      7 min read

    • Article

      Much More Than A Rider

      May 4, 2022

      TO any follower of the sport of eventing, the names Anneli Drummond-Hay and her best-known horse, Merely-A-Monarch, evoke a heroic era of hairy fences, flamboyant riders, scary flights and dashing corinthian spirit, although few involved now are old

      5 min read

    • Article

      Three Outsiders In Makhanda

      Nov 24, 2023

      Three Outsiders In Makhanda
      9 min read

    • Article

      Living History

      Mar 2, 2019

      Walk along the Strand and past Waterloo Bridge, Somerset House, London, and you might just see a narrow doorway squashed between a newsagent and a pizza joint. This is the entrance to the grand-sounding Strand Continental Hotel, a six-storey Edwardia

      3 min read

    • Article

      1990s Notebook

      Oct 5, 2022

      AS a tearful Margaret Thatcher was driven from Downing Street on a chilly November morning in late 1990, Britain’s first female Prime Minister seemed to reflect the national mood of foreboding: the BSE crisis, the devastating bombing campaigns in Nor

      4 min read

    • Article

      Love Comes In The Morning

      May 13, 2019

      Love Comes In The Morning
      6 min read

    • Article

      On The Market

      Mar 1, 2023

      On The Market
      4 min read

    • Article

      Wiltshire’s Rail Commuters Hit The Buffers

      Aug 25, 2021

      In the late 1920s, Evelyn Waugh was staying with the Sitwells at Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire. Standing on the terrace, Sir George Sitwell stood silently, gazing out across the valley. Eventually, he turned and spoke to Evelyn ‘in the wistful, nostalg

      3 min read

    • Article

      Legacies of Slavery

      Dec 23, 2021

      Legacies of Slavery
      11 min read

    • Article

      Riots, Rows And Rinsing

      Sep 13, 2023

      ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO The Fancy in 1923 DARK, dark is the night – indeed, so dark that we see not; welcome would be a ray of light! While the more devout were indulging in prayer, another section of the community was appealing to be saved from a horr

      4 min read

    • Article

      Jobs Of The Streets

      Apr 12, 2023

      Jobs Of The Streets
      4 min read

    • Article

      Booktown Of The Great Karoo

      May 28, 2018

      Booktown Of The Great Karoo
      8 min read

    • Article

      Saltram

      Feb 2, 2023

      Saltram
      6 min read

    • Article

      London Life Need to Know

      Feb 7, 2024

      London Life Need to Know
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Great And The Good

      Jan 5, 2022

      There’s plenty of things to do, see and eat in January–and staying busy is the best antidote to the inevitable post-Christmas blues Beat the January blues with a spot of song and dance. Showstopper! The Improvised Musical is showing at the Lyric Thea

      3 min read

    • Article

      The End Of The Empress

      Jan 11, 2022

      The End Of The Empress
      16 min read

    • Article

      On Refuge

      Jan 11, 2018

      When I was 18, I left home and moved to the big city. There’s nothing unusual in that. For me, though, there was no going back. That same year my father changed jobs. The whole family moved. It was four decades before I would see my childhood home ag

      6 min read

    • Article

      It Happened To Me…

      Oct 6, 2022

      It Happened To Me…
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Pride Of London

      Nov 4, 2020

      The Pride Of London
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Great Divide

      Nov 6, 2023

      The Great Divide
      4 min read

    Reviews for Last Man in Tower

    3.5/5

    168 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      In a July 2011 interview in a New Delhi newspaper (“Press Trust of India”), “Last Man in Tower” author, Aravind Adiga, revealed that the setting for his second novel was the same Mumbai condominium he lived in while he was writing his first Booker Prize-winning novel, “White Tiger.” He was infatuated with the vibrant neighborhood and fascinated by the diverse middle class people who lived there. He wanted to set his new novel in an urban setting and his former residence in Mumbai seemed like a natural choice. Contrary to what many readers imagine after reading this book, Adiga didn’t set out to write a morality story or to write a novel deep with themes about the emerging new India. He set out to write an entertaining thriller. And, yes, I believe he does succeed in writing a remarkable and engrossing psychological thriller…but I write thriller with a very tiny “t.” With a man falling from a tower on the cover, you know how the book will end and within the first few chapters you know who the falling person will be. Whatever suspense there is (and thrillers must have suspense), it comes with finding out how it happens, who is involved, and exactly what takes place. In any case, I think the ending will surprise most readers…perhaps even leave them breathless.The brilliance of this book is not the thriller element of the plot, but the author’s close attention to psychological character development. The author builds a large set of very real characters and then shows how each character is transformed by circumstances. It is important to note that although this novel is set in urban India, it could take place in almost any major urban setting. There is nothing uniquely Indian about the psychological transformations happening to the residents of this Mumbai condominium.In the beginning, it is quite hard to get into the story because there are so many characters with strange names. In fact, Adiga includes a directory at the beginning of the book so readers can easily be reminded of who’s who. For me, the character directory was a necessary reference. At first, I was disappointed because the characters seemed like soap opera stereotypes. But all that changed dramatically as the book progressed. Adiga adds layer upon layer of character detail and soon his large cast take on genuine psychological depth. Readers will experience an authentic and exotic world. Everyone is portrayed in multiple and complex shades of grey. Even the hero has a lot of personality traits that most people would find significantly disagreeable. Everyone possesses aspects of their personalities that are both admirable and deplorable—moral and immoral. The author obviously strives to help his readers to understand these characters and empathize with them…and perhaps, ultimately, to forgive them. It’s a thriller with a small “t” because there is actually too much complexity and detail in the characterizations. Some readers might knock off a full rating star for that, but, this didn’t matter to me. I was not after the “thriller” part. This book will appeal to people who love characters rather than story, to people who view all individuals in shades of grey, to people who have no problem finding understanding and empathy for wrongdoers, and to people who don’t need to like their main characters to enjoy a novel. Adiga’s prose is every bit as wonderful as it was in “White Tiger.” There are luminous passages that make urban India come alive. This is first-rate psychological fiction with a thin thriller twist.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book because 1) I enjoyed Adiga's first novel, The White Tiger, and 2) the synopsis reminded me of several other books I've enjoyed that center on the residents of an Indian apartment complex, notably Manil Suri's The Death of Vishnu. At first, the novel seems to fall into a similar category, revealing the various personlities and daily interactions of the diverse residents with a wry humor. But their generally peaceful relationships are disrupted by the offer from a developer who wants to tear down Tower A and Tower B. Initially, most of the residents of Tower A want to accept what seems to be a generous offer; but a few holdouts either suspect the builder's honesty or see no reason to leave the place where they have lived contentedly. The problem is that, under their rules, 100% of the residents must agree to sell. Using first logic, then legal technicalities, then bullying and rumors, then threats, the builder's henchman and the residents persuade all but one man to sign the agreement. At this point, any humor that remains is very dark, indeed.Adiga seems to be making a comment about the extent of human greed, especially in a cramped former 'third world' city (Mumbai) where prosperity has flourished more rapidly than such values as morality, empathy, justice, and a sense of community can allow. Tower A began to remind me of a colony of rats trapped in a sewer, climbing over one another to reach the only means of escape and resorting to the most primitive enactment of survival of the fittest. It's to Adiga's credit that he creates characters that are, initially, so likable, as this only makes the metamorphoses wrought by greed more despicable. His epilogue shows that, sadly, these changes were more than tranistory--perhaps a reflection on the changes success is bringing to the national character. If there is any light for humanity in the ending, it is in the fact that one character, over the course of what occurs, seems to have found a conscience.While I wouldn't rate Last Man in Tower as a "must read" book, readers who enjoyed The White Tiger or any of the many other books written in recent years that deal with the changing economic, social, and political landscape of modern India would probably find it worth their time.
    • 5/5
      While reading this book I harrumphed, cringed, guffawed, held my breath, and sighed in relief. This is a tale of poverty vs. power, of both the courage and frailty of the human spirit, and about aging alone. As graphic and powerful as the imagery of Mumbai life is in this novel, I think the values which are tested in these characters are universal, and the effort to survive and maintain integrity is also universal. Excellent read!
    • 5/5
      This novel won't be to everyone's taste but I absolutely loved it. Middle class people living in a multistory building in the midst of the Mumbai slums are offered huge amounts of money to sell to a less-than-scrupulous builder. The catch – everyone in the building must agree to sell. And there are holdouts.The story is filled with unforgettable characters and their all-too-human foibles. The writing is gorgeous:He cursed his luck. Of all the things to pick up from Falkland Road – all the horrible names he had worried about – gonorrhoea, syphilis, prostatitis, Aids – he had to pick this up: a conscience.Dark and filed with irony and subtle humor, the story kept me interested throughout and made me care about characters who were not always very likeable people. Those readers who liked The White Tiger will most likely enjoy this novel as well.Thank you to the publisher for giving me an uncorrected proof for review. The quote may have changed in the finished edition.
    • 4/5
      When major change is introduced to a society, you can expect that you're going to see some changes in how people treat each other and what they value, as well. Such is the point of this book on modern Mumbai, viewed through the lens of an old housing society that just so happens to rest on land that a developer wants to put up a new high-rise condo tower on. These people have by and large been living in the building for decades, with old friendships and feuds aplenty. The developer offers an enormous sum of money per square foot, enough to ensure that the residents will be well set up for the future, and can afford places in much nicer parts of town. Most of the residents take up the offer quickly, but some don't, and the huge bags of rupees pour out like acid over the relationships, while surprisingly building up some others.In the end, the story builds towards the stand-off between the last man to be standing out against the offer, someone who had long had the respect of the others. The story goes into a cycle of the bad things that can be done by good people to other good people when they don't understand the other's position, and just appear to be obstacles to a group goal. It's interesting that the lone holdout really doesn't want anything other than to stay; somehow, no one can understand this motivation.The story does a good job about building up tension, and the lead characters are three-dimensional and well-realized over the course of the book, particularly Masterji, Shah, Ajwani and Mrs. Puri. I particularly admire making the holdout's stance well-reasoned, but not making him entirely sympathetic. He's an odd guy, and one does get the sense if the other group had known how to approach him better, had treated him like a different sort of person, the story could have ended sooner and happier. In some sense, he did want something, it's just not what any of the group in favor of leaving were offering at the time. And Adiga does have some good lines; he's a nicely evocative writer, and he does land some words that hit the reader admirably, about religion, about law, about the state of Mumbai.But somehow it doesn't all add up for me, to be honest. Adiga is really heavy-handed with his symbolism sometimes, and that bothers me. I also feel like he thinks it should be more tense than it is, but really, you know how it's going to end up; it's just a question of how it's going to get there, and there's not a ton of choices for that, either, although I didn't exactly get it. I enjoyed this well enough, mostly for the characters, and I did like it better than the White Tiger, but I wasn't overwhelmed. I might still check out his next one, though.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable Indian fiction. Wonderful characterisation, and great development of the theme of how greed corrupts. Not pacy enough for older teen audience, but worth stocking as part of a C21 Indian authors' collection.
    • 4/5
      The White Tiger mostly enchanted me because it introduced me to the Indian reality I knew nothing about. Great story, exotic background. In Between the Assassinations, it was mostly the picture of Indian contemporenean society that made an interesting read. Now in this work, the setting in Mumbai is more or less unrelated to the story. The book is also a beautiful portrait of the city, but the actual narrative and characters could have been told anywhere in the world: it is about greed (or the pursuit of happiness if you wish) and human relations. It is about how charming and friendly people can be driven to do heinous things, not because they turn bad, but because they feel they must, because of obligations, because of cowardice, in the end: because they are only human. What I liked a lot: how there are no bad guys in this story. The many perspectives the author takes. Less: a bit too long. 100 pages less should be possible without taking out the core.
    • 5/5
      (Fiction, Literary, Indian) When a real estate developer offers to buy out the residents of Bombay Co-operative Housing Society Tower A, planning to use the site to build a luxury apartment complex, initially not everyone wants to leave; many of the residents have lived in the tower for years, and many of them are no longer young. But it’s an everyone-or-no-one deal. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shah’s way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building.There are humourous moments but the story takes a dark turn as one by one the community turns on Masterji, and the suspense rises to an almost unbearable level. It’s a rich story peopled with a large cast of well-developed characters. I very much enjoyed this book.Although it was Oxford County Library’s monthly newsletter that first alerted me to this book, I thereafter read Lisa’s excellent review at ANZ Litlovers.4½ stars
    • 4/5
      You know, I can't remember [The White Tiger] all that well but I know I was a little disappointed by it. Not so [Last Man in Tower]. It might benefit simply by being a longer book (400+ pages), as there's space for a larger cast of characters and more character development. The premise of it is that a group of long-term residents live in a dilapidated old housing cooperative in Mumbai. A developer comes along, seeking to tear down the tower and build a new block of ultra-luxurious flats. He offers every resident of the tower a huge sum of money to move, but the deal is only valid if everyone agrees to leave. Soon the only dissenter is a retired schoolteacher called Masterji, formerly one of the most popular and respected tenants.... You can probably see where this is going; a tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions. I recommend it but maybe get in a pint of Ben & Jerry's and some comfort reading afterwards to restore your faith in human goodness.
    • 3/5
      a bit overly long; kind of a depressing story but well written
    • 3/5
      The first thing, the inevitable thing, is the comparison to The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga's first book that won the Man Booker Prize. (Side note: I have no idea about the awards most books win and don't really use those as a reason for reading - or not reading - a book.)I thought The White Tiger packed a punch, it was in your face, fast-paced... None of these characteristics are present in this book. This book has more of a slow, trickling effect. It kind of creeps up on you and then leaves you devastated, which is how I felt a couple of minutes after I finished it.Whereas the previous book was from the point of view of a poor person in India, this one examines a group of people who would probably fall into the middle class, or the lower middle class. It follows a similar pattern, in that it looks at how far people are willing to go to make money or, more accurately, move themselves up into a better situation. I kind of thought that the climax of the story towards the end happened too quickly, as well as the tying up of the rest of it, which was covered in the epilogue. Though, on the other hand, it makes sense because the crux of it all was everything leading up to it and how their mindsets changed over the course of time. In fact, the more I consider the book, the more "truthful" or "real" it seems. I can actually imagine that this could happen in India.As I think about it more while it processes, I may have more to say. End note: I do have a copy of Adiga's 2nd book, Between the Assassinations, checked out of the library but I'm not sure if I can take reading more of these depressing stories about India right now. Might have to read at least one book in between before I attempt that one.
    • 4/5
      I elected to listen to this novel as an audio book. This is the second book that I have read of Aravind Adiga, Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger.The story revolves around the Vishram Housing Cooperative, Tower A and Tower B of Bombay, India where several tenants live together with a organized set of rules; some for many years.Enter the greedy developer who offers the residents the sum of $200,000 US dollars for each of the apartments. His goal is to build an ultra luxury apartment complex. But…but a 100% of the residents must sell to complete the sale.Master G, a retired high school physics teacher, who misses his daughter and wife and does not want to sell the apartment where all his memories live of his family. A few other residents feel this way too.While he values his neighbors of 30 years, he decides not to accept the developers offer. The majority of his neighbors do want to sell and envision so many wonderful prospects that are beyond their wildest dreams.The novel gives us some much information about the society of Vishram and Bombay where we meet the developer and his left hand man, mistresses, a “Communist Auntie”, ungrateful sons, street vendors and beguiling female neighbors.Slowly through bullying, rumors and then threats, all the tenants but Master G agrees to sell. He is the only stand out. The writer, Adiga appears to be making a comment about the extent of the human appetite for money. How quickly the residents loose their self respect and revert to lawlessness.I enjoyed his character development of all the participants in the novel. It asks the question, who do you know? and how much can you trust them?Pick up the book and answer those questions yourself.
    • 5/5
      Sometimes a book is so good it’s hard to do justice to it in a review. This is one of those books. As the Vakola area of Bombay (as the author usually calls it) begins to come up in the world, the inhabitants of an apartment block are offered money by a developer to move out. One man, Masterji, a retired teacher, wants to stay. This is the story of how the promise of wealth changes and corrupts a community. But it’s also so much more than that. The author takes us into the lives of Masterji and his neighbours, letting us see their thoughts and dreams and fears. With humanity and humour he paints a picture of the friendships, favours and shared histories that bind a community together; and then shows how small envies and old grievances are magnified when that community is divided.Bombay itself is a major character in the book. There is a real sense of how the city is changing as India becomes richer. The contrasts between the lucky rich and the frightening hand-to-mouth existence of the very poor are woven into the story, but subtly, so that the reader accepts these contrasts as easily as the inhabitants. The author also highlights the cosmopolitan nature of the city, the differing religions and cultures all forming one vibrant whole. This book made me laugh and cry. It is full of warmth and the characters are drawn sympathetically and affectionately. In many ways an intimate portrait of a small group of people, but also an in-depth look at the strengths and frailties of human nature. By a long way, this is the best book I have read this year. Don’t miss it! I got the chance to read and review this book through the Amazon Vine programme.
    • 4/5
      Not as good as White Tiger and about 100 pages too long for the development of characters and storyline.. The real interest is the corrupting effect that greed has on simple people.