Slow Burn by Amal Singh
I would like to thank Flame Tree Press for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Flame Tree Press
Published – Out now
Price – £13.80 paperback £4.95 ebook
When Rishi Tripathi, a failed actor, falls through a mirror in an inverted Mumbai, he invites fame like he has never seen before. In this inverted city, he’s a superstar and a critically acclaimed darling. But he soon realizes that success bears a heavy cost. The cruel actions of his doppelganger catch up to him, and he’s forced to find an entity called the Maker of Mirrors to return to his actual city.
But fame is also a drug, and Rishi has become an addict.
Is he truly ready to return and embrace failure?
There is a thin line between ambition and greed. A desire to do or have something can very easily become all-consuming. In Amal Singh’s Slow Burn there is an inventive exploration of this when a young man finally gets to ha ethe career and lifestyle he has always wanted but starts to wonder what he has to lose of himself to keep it. The highs and lows of the Bollywood film industry combine with magical parallel universes to create a memorable tale.
Rishi Tripathi desperately wants to be a movie star, but it seems the one chance he needs to prove himself is never coming. He cannot stomach the idea of trying for television and just barely manages a secondary income as a party clown for children’s parties. One day though out of anger he smashes a mirror but actually falls through it leaving the Mumbai he knows and entering a new version of it. He now finds himself living the life of action movie star Rrishi Tripathi. The way movies here work means Rishi can easily take over and enjoys a life of wealth, fame and acclaim but the real Rrishi he finds did many things to keep that lifestyle that Rishi finds increasingly troubling and perhaps his own world is needed.
Singh weaves a fascinating study in human desire in this story and that works with how we soon get on Rishi’s side because while he is perhaps in denial that he can get to the top he really keeps going for it. It is very hard not to feel for him in his early scene of dressing as a clown and having to entertain a very rich selfish child and the get told his face doesn’t fit the movie scene. Living with otherer artists, a relationship in its dying days and yet he seems overall a decent if stubborn person. Not yet ready to move on. A mysterious script called Doppelganger by a reclusive pair of writers arrives and appears to open doors that quickly close on him
As such initially we are pleased he suddenly appears in an alternate Mumbai where science fiction movies are all the rage rather than musicals. Singh shows that sometimes a few changes tot eh world can suddenly make a nobody become flavour of the month. What I found interesting though is how Singh explores it is less the acting that attracts Rishi it’s the lifestyle. In this alternate Mumbai movie acting is a few shots then green screen and technology make the rest of the movie. It is not that Rishi has a craft no one recognised its more how he looks and has a sense of presence. Here that has unlocked the riches and fame he always wanted. We start to question does Rishi actually deserve this even though we know how much this drove him.
Soberly we watch how Rishi soon really enjoys this power. In some ways we see the more fair-minded man from in the early chapters. He is kind to his filming crew to their puzzlement; he is far more respectful of this version of his girlfriend and yet power is attractive. He can make projects happen; he can decide to swap agents on a whim and starts to enjoy using the media to get a message out. The interesting question here is si this the environment or something within Rishi becoming loosened? How far will he go to keep things the way he goes. The more he finds out about the Rishi he has replaced both scares him and shows what he is potentially capable of. Singh does a good job of keeping us unsure how this will go all the way to the end of the story.
The moral backdrop is fused with the world of Bollywood and Singh does a great subtle job of making this world come to life in both versions of Mumbai in a way that I think UK and US audiences will find easy to understand and compare with our understanding of fame and stardom. But underneath this is a more magical world, and two mysterious entities appear who drive the strange events around Rishi and their story too is of ambition leading to pain for each other which neatly mirror (suitably enough) Rishi’s dilemma.
My only reservation is the finale requires a rug to be taken from the audience’s point of view to show us something we missed and that I feel perhaps may have worked better unfolding in real time and would underline the moral dilemmas of this story better rather than the ambiguous note we leave the tale on.
I definitely recommend Slow Burn as it is an unusual contemporary fantasy asking some interesting moral questions of the reader about how far you should go for that dream of yours. Singh’s mix of modern life and magic force plus the exploration of movie stardom makes this a fascinating read well worth a look.
