HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA

The author narrates his gritty rags-to-riches novel in a deep, rich baritone. In a somber tone, Hamid plays with the conventions of self-help manuals and coming-of-age stories, an approach that contrasts with the mature subject matter of child labor and abject poverty. The story is told through an unusual point of view: the second person. Hamid uses the repetitive "you" as a mark of punctuation of sorts in the narrative, which is filled with wild inventiveness that always meanders back to the grinding details of life for the lower classes in modern-day India. Hamid’s is the consistent voice throughout the continually shifting perspectives, male and female. The steady pace of his narration reflects this unrelenting look at the tenuous lives of those determined to climb the rungs of the social ladder in Asia. M.R. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2013]