‘Dead Hand’ takes readers to India
The mystery behind “A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta” isn’t all that exciting or mysterious. And the attempt to solve the crime isn’t that dramatic and leads to a conclusion that's not entirely satisfying.
But don’t read “A Dead Hand” for the rip-roaring plot. Read it to get an experience of richly crafted characters who live in a city and country that is foreign to most Americans.
Travel writer Paul Theroux, famous for his novels and for his real-life travelogues, has created an engaging story in his latest novel,
“A Dead Hand.” It’s a wonderfully atmospheric piece that offers a detailed glimpse into the life of India and especially Calcutta. Just the name "Calcutta" evokes images of dark, evil places, thanks to a notorious 18th-century event involving a prison cell and dead British prisoners.
After reading the novel, I felt like jumping on a plane and visiting the city right away — but maybe just for a day. Theroux also exposes the dark side of the city and its people.
“India in its sprawl seemed to me less a country than a bloated village, a village of a billion, with village pieties, village pleasures, village peculiarities, and village crimes,” Theroux writes in the opening paragraph.
Theroux has written about India before (“The Imperial Way”), but he keeps his focus on Calcutta, which experienced hundreds of years of British colonialism until the nation’s independence in 1947.
“A Dead Hand” centers around two main characters — Jerry Delfont and Merrill Unger. Delfont is a struggling American travel writer who is experiencing writer’s block, or “a dead hand,” while living in a cheap hotel near the heart of the city.
Out of the blue, Delfont receives a letter from Unger, who is seeking his assistance to solve a crime. A friend of Unger’s son is afraid for his life after the body of a dead boy was found on the floor of the friend’s room in a sleazy motel.
Delfont is puzzled but intrigued. He soon meets the woman, who is an unmarried American philanthropist and wealthy businesswoman.
“I realized that she was not just attractive but extremely beautiful — queenly, motherly, even sexual, with a slowness and elasticity in her manner and movements, a kind of strength and grace,” Delfont observes.
He is immediately enraptured with this woman and quickly agrees to help her, like a puppy obeying its master. Their relationship turns romantic but not explicitly sexual; she often gives him tantric massages.
But in the midst of his investigation, which has a few twists and turns, he grows more skeptical of Unger and her business practices.
However, by the time “A Dead Hand” wrapped up, I didn’t care that much about Delfont, Unger or the crime. I was just happy that I got to enjoy a colorful trip through Calcutta with my guide Paul Theroux. It’s an adventure I won’t soon forget.
