In her kaleidoscopic debut novel, Oindrila Mukherjee brings the fictional Indian metropolis of Hrishipur to vivid life. Positioned in northern India, Hrishipur is a younger metropolis, dwelling to migrants in search of work, elite professionals dazzled by the glittering nightlife and ultrawealthy enterprise homeowners trying to find the following large deal. With luxurious malls, unique house complexes and crowded streets, it’s a place of dizzying extremes.
The Dream Builders unfolds over the course of 1 scorching, dry summer time. Maneka Roy, a college professor who’s been residing within the U.S. since school, returns dwelling to go to her father after her mom’s sudden loss of life. Her mother and father moved to Hrishipur from their native Kolkata, investing in one among many new building initiatives that by no means materialized. Now her retired father is struggling to make ends meet, and Maneka is confronted with a metropolis that’s as international to her because the American Midwest as soon as was.
However Maneka and her father are simply two of the ten characters whose lives and tales intersect in The Dream Builders. There’s additionally Ramona, Maneka’s rich childhood good friend, who has simply purchased a flat within the largest new building in Hrishipur: Trump Towers. There’s Jessica, a single mom with an adopted daughter, and Gopal, an electrician fueled by gritty dedication. In different chapters, a husband longs to reconnect along with his spouse, a spa employee worries about her household’s monetary state of affairs, and a photographer goals of his large break. Mukherjee strikes simply from one perspective to the following, highlighting the cultural, class and gender variety of town.
All of those characters are hiding from themselves, one another, their pasts and futures. They might be neighbors, mates, lovers, employers and staff, however their goals, wishes and wounds will not be instantly obvious to at least one one other. They solely ever see different individuals in bits and items, which frequently results in misguided assumptions concerning the relative ease or hardship of one other particular person’s life. This dissonance offers the novel its richness and propulsive movement. Though Mukherjee lingers in every perspective for under a chapter, her characters are so particular, so instantly human, that they continue to be resolutely current lengthy after the narrative has moved on.
The Dream Builders is a chic, intimate story about individuals adrift in a chaotic metropolis, an unpredictable economic system and a quickly altering world. They lengthy for dwelling, belonging, stability and luxury, struggling to root themselves whilst the bottom shifts beneath them. Within the areas between their tales, Mukherjee invitations readers to unknot the deeper echoes and connections that make this fantastically structured novel such a powerful debut.
