The protagonist of Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia provides his eulogy right at the beginning, “If you had a business card, this is what it would say. Maali Almeida. Photographer. Gambler. Slut.” That sets the tone of the book early on. It is a whodunit about a ghost trying to solve his own murder.
This reviewer first met the author a decade ago. He was on a multi-city tour for the promotion of his debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, which had won several awards, including the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. At the end of the chat, he promised his next book would not be about alcoholism or cricket. And true to his word, The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia steers clear of the two predominant subjects of his earlier book.
It’s not that Maali doesn’t drink, but he isn’t Pradeep Mathew. The common theme of a conflict-ridden Sri Lanka though continues into his second novel.
Maali is a war photographer who takes the reader through the tumultuous underbelly of Sri Lanka’s long-drawn conflict, a world where politicians and goons are unrecognisable from each other.
The book begins with Maali waking up in the ghoulish world, which is no less bureaucratic than the one he left behind. Here too, palms are greased, favours sought, enmities carried forward and a price is attached to every request. He has seven moons ordained to him in this in-between stage before he can ‘rest in peace’. A moon is a day in the afterlife.
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What we get to know early on is that Maali’s life has been as intriguing as his afterlife. He is a closet homosexual, loves his best friend’s cousin and the trio has been living together without much disdain before their world gets rocked by Maali’s disappearance. His mother wants a police investigation into the murder while Maali himself is fleeting around in both worlds trying to piece together his life and death. Maali’s agonising afterlife is spent getting his friends to find a set of photographs that may have some answers to his death.
His mutilated body is sinking in Beira Lake, while his mother is pleading with the cops to lodge a complaint about her son’s disappearance. The list of suspects is long, and Maali has little time to distinguish between death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons.
It’s a book filled with characters moving at a pace only ghosts can imagine. But Karunatilaka has a way of keeping his reader engaged with the constant switch between the past and present, and the juggling between the two worlds. Once the readers settle in, they realise the world of ghosts isn’t much different from that of the living.
The dystopian afterlife allows the author to be critical of his homeland. This entertaining mystery novel also has a good dose of magic realism. For many, Karunatilaka’s prose is reminiscent of the styles of Salman Rushdie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This reviewer, however, was reminded of Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis while reading this book.
Maali’s Colombo of the 1980s is reminiscent of the 1970s’ Bombay in Thayil’s 2012 work. Both authors are gifted when it comes to showcasing the unacknowledged milieus of cities through their dry wit and sardonic humour.
Karunatilaka has never shied away from admitting how his novels will almost always be set in Sri Lanka as he is yet to find a place as “absurd and bewitching”. From a man who self-published his first book, to winning the Booker Prize for his second, Karunatilaka has come a long way.
(This is the fifth of a six-part series of reviews of the 2022 Booker-shortlisted books)