The Illicit Happiness Of Other People

Seventeen-year-old Gabriel has done something terrible. The only clue to his actions lies in a comic strip he has drawn, which has fallen into the hands of his father Ousep - a drunken anarchist and nuclear spy. Ousep begins investigating the extraordinary life of his son, blissfully unaware that his long-suffering wife is plotting to kill him through the perfect murder. Set in Madras in the 1980s, The Illicit Happiness of Other People is a darkly comic story involving an alcoholic's probe into the minds of the sober, the space and weapons programme of an impoverished nation, the plots of a brilliant housewife to finish off her husband, and the pure love of a boy for a beautiful girl.