Book review: Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

Em and the Big Hoom keeps a big brave smile on its face, gossiping and cracking jokes, as teardrops creep out of its eyes to reveal its pain. Em’s family (her husband The Big Hoom, daughter Susan, and the unnamed narrator son) watches helplessly as she loses part (or whole) of herself to mental illness. Her disease — specifically unspecified — is confined but her suffering is infectious; all of them catch it.

With nearly three-quarters of the book set in just a 450 square feet apartment and a hospital ward in Bombay, Em and the Big Hoom succeeds in presenting a whole world. Maintaining an arm’s distance from self-pity and self-indulgence, it paints a dark picture of mental illness with helpless humour.

Em, the quirkiest, most fleshed out, and obviously the craziest character, makes the book come alive by keeping it on its toes. Her behaviour, triggered in the most unimaginable ways by unpredictable events, keeps the reader hooked, almost turning her into a caretaker as she worries for Em and the ones who suffer with (and without) her. And therein lies the magic of the book: the narrator makes you feel the things he feels while almost never saying so (and being painfully honest when he does).

You read with panic when Em attempts to harm herself, you feel hurt when she makes a bitter remark, you feel anxious when she steps out of her home, and you rejoice in the fragile moments of lightness when normalcy is shared. In one word, it touches you. No, it holds you. And then, with a sense of loss, it lets you go.

I gave the book 5/5 on Goodreads.