So Good in Black

Book Review

Black is the colour od beauty, fantasies and much more than we can imagine. “So Good in Black” is the writer, Sunetra Gupta's novel that plays with a complex language and a myriad of thoughts.

This 292-page-novel revolves around Byron Mallick and his friend Max Gate. The story is narrated by his friend. Byron is intensely charming and seemingly extremely corrupt. His American friend Max Gate is a diplomat turned travel-writer based in London. Both meet in an extraordinary circumstance, and that too upon the shores of Bengal. The situation was as such that Byron was soon to be facing some criminal charges, of murder, and Max, who somehow has arrived with some idea of resolving this crisis, actually finds himself confronted with an utter necessity to revise his own notions of ethics, faithfulness and love.

He tells the story, probably because he is the one who faces more, in terms of moral dilemmas, and that will actually help the readers to understand three not two sides of the coins, and some detailing is also done on the edges of the coin too.

The dilemmas are emotional, intellectual and personality based too, yet desolate and bizarre. Byron is drawn in to a heinous crime. His admittance to having adulterated (with chalk) infant milk formulas to make profits is a shock. He gave it to the women and children at Damini's shelter to save his reputation, or have her killed? However, he refutes his involvement in a murder that occurs as a resultant of the investigation of the crime.

These questions burden each character, including Max. Byron’s his former brother-in-law Piers O'Reilly, convinced of Byron's guilt. Damini's cousin and Byron's former ward Ela, whose affair with Max has haunted both their lives, which then resulted in ending his marriage. Sunetra Gupta's recreates the ache of loss of love, fame, reputation, integrity and at the same time compilation of complicated memories. Max considers them as tormenting ambiguities. Here is an extract from the novel:

“Byron Mallick gets up and walks over to an ornate Victorian mirror on the wall and straightens it.

Do you know how much money your mother owes me, Piers? Byron asks him.

Oh, loads and loads, Piers replies.

And who will continue to pay her debts if I am gone?

Who will indeed, I wonder?

You do not care about your mother, do you? says Byron.

Who does? asks Piers O’Reilly.”

“….What you face is the death penalty, Piers says to Byron, lighting another slim cigar.

The death penalty, eh? says Byron.”

The story is built with several dots, joined together. There are connections made to late 18th Century, during which the British society was compelled to be meticulous about the language of morality within the milieu of the trial of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of British India. He was impeached in 1787 for corruption. Many important figures were mentioned in the proceedings such as Edmund Burke, who gave many an impassioned speech to condemn Hastings.

Sunetra Gupta is an highly praised novelist, essayist and scientist. In October 2012, her fifth novel, So Good in Black, was long-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. In 2009 she was named as the winner of the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her scientific achievements. Sunetra lives in Oxford with her husband and two daughters. She is a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University's Department of Zoology. She was born in Calcutta in 1965 and wrote her first works of fiction in Bengali as encouraged by her father. She is an accomplished translator of the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore.

Published by: Women Unlimited; Edition edition

Available on: Amazon India & Flipkart Price: Rs 338 and Rs 325 (Paperback)