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Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, And Hope In A Mumbai Undercity (2012)

by Katherine Boo(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1400067553 (ISBN13: 9781400067558)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Random House

review 1: I knew Kate Boo in passing 20 years ago when we both worked in the newsroom at the Washington Post--maybe just well enough to say hi to at the water cooler--but I knew her work very well. She was intimidatingly good at what she did: long-form, narrative journalism from the perspective of a deeply embedded observer. I read this book because I like her work, not because I am so fascinated with India or Third World poverty; in general, that's a subject that makes me feel oppressed and powerless, so I try to stick my head in the sand and pretend it isn't there. But this story about people in a deeply impoverished neighborhood in Mumbai who live in huts near a sewage lake, right behind a bunch of luxury hotels (the "Beautiful Forevers" refers to one of those hotels) was a fasci... morenating read, with vivid, fully realized human beings as characters. There's plenty of despair in it, along with greed and a level of police corruption that makes our judicial system look like a Girl Scouts meeting, but I ended up feeling admiration for the people Boo writes about. They have about as much desire to live next to a sewage lake as you or I do, and most of them work a lot harder than most of us ever will at improving their lives.
review 2: So sad - life in one of the Mumbai slums. This particular slum borders the new airport and fancy hotels that have arisen to house international travelers. So the slum dwellers see a life to which they aspire but can never reach. The bribery necessary for every little thing, the lack of an education system, the corrupt police and judicial systems all make it next to impossible for the people who live in the slum to rise above their surroundings. Most of the inhabitants make a meager living by sorting through the trash dumps and selling what they scavenge. I thought this was so disheartening when I (at first) believed this was a work of fiction. But it's not. It's non-fiction and carefully researched. I didn't know how many stars to award. The subject matter is so depressing, but the research and writing are excellent. Can't say I "liked" it, but I certainly respect the work. less

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