The small Caribbean island of Casaquemada has gone on a buying spree. Formerly Spanish, then British and only a generation ago fostering glorious hopes of its independence, the island has been taken unawares by oil prosperity.
Dr. Raj Ramsingh begins to wonder what has really brought him back from Toronto’s easy urbanity to the island of his birth. Was it for the sake of his aged Hindu grandparents who had proudly brought him up when he was orphaned, or so that his small son Rohan would know his extended family? Or had Raj, like so many others, been seduced back by the rumour of wealth easily acquired? But now, in the decline of the economic boom, the flow of easy money is quickly drying up, the orgy of acquisition being replaced by the anger of sudden deprivation. Raj believes he detects paranoia in his cousin Surein’s talk of weapons. But houses are being turned into burglar-proofed bunkers, policemen on street patrol clutch rifles and sub-machine-guns, and the modest shop, that had enables his grandfather to send Raj to medical school in Toronto, has been fire-bombed.
In this triumphant first novel Neil Bissoondath, author of the acclaimed collection of stories, Digging Up the Mountains, captures all the laughter and colour of island life as well as its sorrows. A Casual Brutality is a dazzling literary achievement, richly populated and packed with action and humour.