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Doppelganger Short Stories
by Madhvi Mahadevan
Description:
Set in urban, middle class India, these 18 stories, defying easy categorization, are a true miscellany, reflecting the uncertain, illogical and vibrant nature of our times. Here boundaries between the real and the phantasmal blur: malls become haunted places, airports and golf clubs are the crossroads where past and present selves meet and greet. Chronicling the isolation, insecurities,hidden angst, subtle passion and secret longings that underlie ordinary lives and relationships, these stories weaves in themes as diverse as memory and the emotional residue it produces, the elusiveness of identity, the rigours of role play, the convolutions of a double life, the complexity of shadow wives. By turns sweet, sad, poignant, funny and mysterious, they draw us into their separate and compact worlds and linger with us awhile.
About The Author
Set in urban, middle class India, these 18 stories, defying easy categorization, are a true miscellany, reflecting the uncertain, illogical and vibrant nature of our times. Here boundaries between the real and the phantasmal blur: malls become haunted places, airports and golf clubs are the crossroads where past and present selves meet and greet. Chronicling … Continue reading “Doppelganger Short Stories”
Skryf Review
“Doppelganger is an endearing, heartwarming collection of 18 short stories woven around the titled theme of the alter ego, or the “double” in the other. Wafer-thin surfaces are peeled away from a number of miscellaneous people who seem to have wandered into the book to reveal what lies underneath — seething, happy, sad, insecure, smoldering, bewildered characters.
The narratives appear closer to comedies of manners, or domestic dramas of sorts. The stories are mostly about urban, middle or upper class people. Some of them have floated up from the lower strata, or moved from rural areas. There is no sociological exploration, only psychological and attitudinal studies. Hence, the stories are a gallery of the kind of people you run into in life’s parade. They include successful businessmen, failed wannabes, aspirants, housewives or hopeless people in the middle of nowhere. Then there are people in love, rejects from affairs, simple husbands, smart wives, scheming adulteresses, cunning game-changers, cougar relationships, self-centered children and neglected parents”