Author: Katherine Boo
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Kindle for iPad
Books I've read this year: 71
The most remarkable thing about Behind the Beautiful Forevers is not that it's a heartbreaking story where too many young people die and too many people suffer injustice from people who should be protecting them (like parents and police), although that is true, the most remarkable thing is that it's a true story. I don't mean that it's based on a true story-- I mean that Katherine Boo actually worked her way into the fabric of Annawadi slum near the Mumbai airport and was able to report on what happened there over a period of years. And the people actually talked to her. When I think about Behind the Beautiful Forevers as a piece of reporting, it almost strains my credulity-- it's a book that reads like fiction, with plots that seem to come out of an Indian Charles Dickens. There are young boys accused of murders they did not commit. Young girls who kill themselves rather than marry men they don't love. Men and women who will do anything for enough grease in the palm. Although Boo briefly describes her process in the Afterword, I would love to see a more in-depth look at exactly how she picked this slum, these people, and gained their trust, because she's writing from both sides of some longstanding slum turf wars, and that's impressive.
That said, I found that there were times when I didn't want to read this book. It wasn't one that I picked up and zipped through. Some afternoons I read The New Yorker or perused every article on People.com rather than reading the book. While I think it's an important book and a remarkable book, I'm not always sure it was an accessible, easy book. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe I'm sometimes sort of a bad reader.
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