The Association of Small Bombs: A Novel

It’s 1996. Two brothers, ten and thirteen, walk into a busy Delhi market with their twelve-year-old friend. The brothers are Hindu, the friend, Muslim. As they arrive, a terrorist bomb explodes, instantly killing the two brothers but only slightly wounding their friend. Karan Mahajan’s novel, The Association of Small Bombs, explores the consequences of this attack from every perspective over the years that follow. He traces the lives of the brothers’ parents, the surviving boy and his parents, the bomber, and a circle of younger activists who fall into an association with the bomber many years later.

Mahajan deserves high marks for his insight into the ongoing conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India and into the motives of the Kashmir-based terrorists who bedevil Indian society to this day. It’s a pity that he doesn’t seem to like any of the characters he has created. Several are despicable human beings. The others are simply unpleasant.

The Association of Small Bombs was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2016. I can’t profess to be surprised: literary critics typically choose books that annoy me. My excuse for picking up and reading this one is that the subject matter is so compelling — and I read the book to the bitter end because it’s reasonably well written. I say reasonably, because the author uses far too many Hindi or Urdu words, the meaning of which is sometimes unclear even in context; a glossary might have helped for readers who don’t speak one of those languages. Unless you have a special interest either in contemporary Indian affairs or in Islamic terrorism, I do not recommend reading this book.

“The Association of Small Bombs” by Karan Mahajan is a bust, a wildly misfired attempt at story-telling. I never, not for one second’s reading time (and it’s a slow read), understood this downbeat, dark and very strange novel. There simply is no “there” there.

I have no idea how on earth this book reached any status of critical acclaim. The characters are all, every one, awful and despicable. No one to like here. No one to admire here. No one who says anything remotely interesting or insightful. No one here to lift the reader into a state of understanding any form of culture and civility -- anywhere.

I grew tired of the proselytizing (in this case for Islam), and I would have felt the same way were the conversion tracts made from a Christian -- or any other – religious perspective.

Perhaps we all know the worst about India already. This novel confirms every negative thing you have ever heard about modern life in India. It became quite discouraging to this reader to have each embarrassingly degrading stereotype of Indian culture validated over and over and over again.

The story is small (tiny even), the people uninteresting and desperate (massively evil and enormously cowardly), a plot virtually absent, merely a chronology. There is no denouement – at all. The story just limps painfully to its unsatisfying end. The next day happens. “He never leaves the house again.” That’s it.

Don’t bother.

It’s a solidly awful 1.40, downgraded to the store’s lowest level, 1.0.

Karan Mahajan's in depth exploration of not only the effect of a terrorist attack on victims and their families but the reasons people are drawn into acts committing acts of terrorism is so timely . Small bombings in crowded places happen almost daily and although they don't make the headlines, they are just as devastating to the peoples involved and this book allows us a look into these lives.

This gripping novel about the contagious nihilism of terrorism has the pace, depth and polish of a John le Carre novel. If only Delhi-reared, Stanford-educated Karan Mahajan had taken an Anglo-French pseudonym! He gets inside the muddled heads of a cast of confused young men who get too close to bombs, whether planting them or being blown up by them—or both. He’s equally acute detailing the helplessness of survivors, whose disintegration is only delayed, psychic rather than physical. At times, the horror comes close to comedy, as all too many characters keep their appointments in Samarra. In outlook and passion, Mahajan’s book reminds me of Joseph Conrad’s anarchist classic “The Secret Agent.”

Sentence by sentence, the book builds a strong and beautifully written case against modern civilization’s response to sectarianism. As Mahajan sees it, every aspect of life in India tends toward the destruction of life in India. “There was no shortage of things to shoot in Azamgarh,” he writes. “It was a town made of trash.” As for the city, “Growing up in Delhi, one gets addicted to pollution.” He reminds us that Hindu-ruled India has the world’s largest Muslim minority. These are “people who wanted to be Indians but had discovered themselves instead to be Muslims.” One unfortunate way to express militant Islam is to support Kashmiri separatism, a lost cause since 1947.

The book’s title alludes to a survivor’s futile, almost pathetic attempt to construct a socially responsible response to the wave of two-figure-death-toll bombings that afflict India’s marketplaces. The more you care about these unfortunately frequent tragedies, the worse off you are. The more you ignore them, the more they continue. As Mahajan sees it, as Conrad saw it, you can’t win.

The Association of Small Bombs’ By Karan Mahajan', author, Neil Shah, narrator
In 1996, two brothers were killed when a bomb exploded in an open air market in Delhi, India. So began a book that explores terrorism and the making of a terrorist, exposing the type of person that joins the cause and the reactions of the victims to the havoc they wreak. In the early days of terrorism, using small bombs, disorganized splinter groups accomplished one important goal. They created fear and confusion even though only minor death and destruction occurred. This fear and confusion gave rise to the need for vengeance and retribution on the part of the victims and their families. They had to come to terms with the experience in a way that allowed them to go forward with their lives. Often these methods had disastrous consequences, at other times they succeed in gaining some closure for the victim’s families. Unfortunately, these little groups of radical Muslims, or Islamists, that were largely ignored in foreign lands, were able to spawn more plentiful militant groups, eventually giving birth to 9/11.

Tushar and Nakul Khurana, were young boys, not yet teenagers, on what their father would later think of as a fool’s errand. They had gone to the market in Lajpat Nagar to pick up a television that had been repaired. Because they were poor, they could not purchase a new one. Vikas Khurana was ashamed that he had sent his boys to retrieve the TV, and instead, he pretended it was to retrieve a watch. Either way, they boys died. They had taken a friend, Mansour Ahmed, with them. Mansour was a Muslim. When the bomb exploded, Mansour ran away. He lived with the guilt of his escape for the rest of his life.

In the book, the author gives the impression that was commonplace in India among the people portrayed in the book; it was acceptable to lie to save face. They simply lied to protect themselves, their image or their ultimate goals, and not all of their goals were noble. The bombers lied because they could, and they lied because it was acceptable to do so in order to destroy their enemies. They lied to accomplish their nefarious purposes. Their enemies meant nothing to them. They were very expendable. So they excused their own immorality and lack of ethics by thinking of their enemies as worthless.

In the aftermath of the explosion at the market, everyone had advice to give to the Khurana’s and the Ahmed’s. The Ahmed’s, Muslims in a country largely Hindu, felt out of place and were under a cloud of greater suspicion. Suspicions even arose about the injured Mansour. As a Muslim, could he have been the bomber?

To compensate for their loss, the Khurana’s decided to devote their lives to helping the victims of the many small bombings. Vikas wanted to make a documentary. Deepa wanted to help the victims and meet the bombers when they were caught. Almost hypocritically, they took pleasure in witnessing the torture of the damned in prison, even thought they objected to the violence inflicted upon themselves. They soon realized t hat often the wrong people were rounded up and incarcerated. They were beaten and tortured into submission and confession. The justice system was not just.

Throughout the early days of terrorism when small bombs continued to explode in various parts of the world and the world took little notice, terrorist groups began to grow in number in that vacuum. The would-be bombers seemed like insignificant and dispensable young men who were sucked into the rebellion because of boredom, friendship, unemployment, dissatisfaction or sometimes, even romance or other innocuous and meaningless reasons. They believed they were performing their righteous and religious duty, and although some questioned their ultimate actions, they rarely refused to carry out an assignment. Many never truly seemed to identify with the cause they were supporting, nor did they really seem to understand it. They simply followed and obeyed orders from leaders sometimes unqualified to lead.

There were many splinter groups that were not cohesive, but they created havoc, death and destruction in small ways for many years. The small bombings rarely attracted notice until 9/11, when so many Americans were murdered in a senseless terrorist act and Al Qaeda became a household name. From the little groups that were ignored and hardly thwarted, hate, anger and frustration grew until a monster was born capable of causing far more damage and fear throughout the world than previously believed possible in the modern world. The modern world forgot that they were being attacked by not so modern villains who had far less honorable values or respect for life and would therefore think nothing of committing wanton acts of murder.

The author points out, that more often than not, the wrong people were captured and imprisoned. The culprits seemed rather dull witted and backward, didn’t mind killing innocent people, and they justified their behavior because it was for Allah. They didn’t even fully understand what their cause was. They only knew that killing people meant garnering attention, and they wanted the attention to publicize their cause and make a statement. Many could not withstand the beatings and torment of prison. They simply confessed to crimes they did not commit. Violence begat violence as the bombings continued. In the book, the author writes that a devotee of Islam had to work to taste the blood of infidels 72 times, in order to qualify as worthy. It is assumed by me that they all wanted to be worthy.

The author captured the mindset of the terrorist and victim in India, perfectly. The narrator portrayed the characters very authentically, with perfect accents and expression. The Indian philosophy was straight forward, simple, basic and logical, although not always based in reality since they often jumped to conclusions, believed lies they were told, and were suspicious of innocent people, rather than the guilty. The radical side of Islam was portrayed as barbaric. The spiders kept escaping the net while the flies got caught in the web.

“And you know what happens when a bomb goes off?” asks one of the bomb-makers at a significant point in this book. “The truth about people comes out.”

More than an explanation of why young activists are radicalized and more than a book about how the seeds of terrorism are sewn, The Association of Small Bombs focuses on the “truth about people.” In doing so, it claims its own niche.

In the opening pages, the Khuranas, a Hindu couple, lose their two young sons during a random small bomb blast in an open-air Indian market. The sons are accompanied by their Muslim neighbor, Mansoor, who survives, but is forever transformed. Following the first chapter – Chapter Zero – this novel explores the response to terror – the victims, the victims’ families, the bomb-makers.

It is this deep and penetrating analysis of the participants’ inner lives that sets this book apart. No one is radicalized or demonized. No one is a world-class hero. At times, heroes and purported villains merge – or associate – and become twinned. It is the author’s gift that we, the readers, care for each one of his created characters, even the ones that would not ordinarily earn our sympathy.

If you are seeking a book that explores the societal or religious or class caste reasons for terrorism, this is not your book. All those factors are alluded to but the key theme is how even the detonation of a small bomb can create shockwaves that transform lives in unexpected ways. “This is what it felt like to be a bomb,” the author writes. “You were coiled up, majestic with blackness, unaware that the universe outside you existed, and then a wire snapped and ripped open your eyelids all the way around and you had a vision of the world that was 360 degrees, and everything in your purview was doomed by seeing.” This same description could be used to define the key characters. By aligning the bomb with those affected by it, Karan Mahajan, a New Delhi-born writer, creates a thoughtful and provoking book for our times.

We read about or watch news stories about terrorist bombers. So many dead, so many wounded. A group claims response or doesn't. The bomber dies or doesn't. And that's it. There's a blast and then it's over. But who are these people? What do they want? What's the point? And what happens to the survivors? Their relatives? The bystanders? The authorities?

The Association of Small Bombs, a novel by Karan Mahajan, published in 2016, was a National Book Award finalist, and named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review. The author was born in1964 and grew up in New Delhi. He's a graduate of Stanford University and the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Austin.

It is not an easy book. It is populated with Indian characters and a casual reader may have difficulty keeping names and relationships clear. It begins with a bomb set off in a neighborhood market in Delhi in May 1996. Three boys, friends, have gone to the market without parental permission. Two brothers are among those killed, the third wounded.

It's only a small bomb. The Kashmiri activitists who planted it are disappointed that it killed only a handful of people, but the psychological damage it does to the families of the dead boy and the surviving boy is incalculable. Much of the book is the story of how these extended families cope or don't with the tragedy.

Moreover, Mahajan takes the reader into the mind of the bomber and shows us his actions, his drives as, in the course of the book, he initiates a Delhi resident into the movement. The Indian police do arrest an activist and torture him, but he is only (only!) a theoretician of the movement, not a bomber himself. On the evidence given in The Association of Small Bombs, the men who prepare and set the bombs, foot soldiers in a murky war, don't really understand the larger point, have no coherent political goals themselves. It's also difficult (impossible) to see how killing innocent Hindu and Muslim shoppers helps the cause unless it boils down to: "You want to stop the bombings? Give us Kashmir."

And the red thread running through the novel is the tension—hostility—between Hindu and Muslim. For the boys, the difference hardly mattered. Once two are dead and the other survives, the difference matters to the families and swells over time.

Aside from the power of the story, which at times is almost too strong to read, Mahajan writes lovely passages like this: "Vikas [the father] was awfully partial toward Tushar [one of the dead boys], though he would nave never acknowledged it. Nankul [the other dead boy, his brother] was popular in school, good at sports, intense, competitive, moody—just like Vikas, in other words—whereas Tushar was lumpy, effeminate, eccentric, troubled, getting pushed around in school, and moseying up to his mother in the kitchen with the halting eyes of an abused animal, always eager to please, reading the newspaper and engaging his father in incessant chatter about politics, a pet topic for him, one he had honed through quiz competitions in school, the one area in which he shown."

The action in the book concludes in 2003, and it feels as if we have lived with the characters through their entire lives, pre-bomb and post. The Association of Small Bombs engages the reader in a exotic yet comprehensible world. I think it's an important book, and the world is one in which more and more of us seem to be living with every news cycle.

The Girl in the Photo

Mahajan does a deft job of balancing all the lives touched by acts of terrorism. Not just the terrorists and their victims but those who witness and support one of the sides of such a conflict. It is not easy to provide motivation in a way that is understandable let alone sometimes tragic itself when juxtaposed against those who are killed or maimed and the survivors of such victims, but the author manages it in a brilliant emotional novel here.

Many times the acts of terrorism get painted in simple black and white and while once such an act is undertaken it does put the moral burden on whoever perpetuates such a heinous crime, but it also too often ignores that hate is almost always not created in a vacuum. And it is only be looking at the creation of such hate that it can be understood and maybe, hopefully prevented. And the nature of all this is captured so well and so movingly by Mahajan. Refusing to give easy answers simply in an effort to over define the problem is shown to be too crass in the end and will never address any part of the problem. All put into a story with characters that compel in so many ways, this is a novel, sadly, for our times.

The Association of Small Bombs was one of those books that kept popping up on my social media feeds. I try to resist the hype of books (unless it has a gorgeous cover) and the synopsis of this read just didn’t do anything to pull me in. How I wished I had resisted a little less with this one in particular.

The Associate of Small Bombs is a book that will haunt you with its devastation, as well as, its attempt at getting inside the mind of a terrorist. I thought I would be put off because of the whole terrorism thing, but interesting enough the parts from the terrorists POV are thought provoking and demand the reader to take a step back from their media driven view of a terrorist. This is not a book that promotes terrorism or even attempts to justify it. The whole “association of small bombs” is the key here. It shows how one’s choice can connect that person to others in a varying and multitude of ways.

Karan Mahajan‘s writing is beautiful and poetic. He delicately navigates between terrorist and victim, gives us a glimpse into their lives and the opportunity to understand these characters. We are not forced to like any of them nor are we required to sympathise with them. Terrible things happen to people and they are often forced to chose their path and this book shows how those paths are interconnected and how a bomb can shape lives in many ways.

I highly recommend this read if you are looking for a thought provoking read that asks you to take a step back from your own world view and explore.

I developed an awkward relationship with this book. I started by being curious to read it, then stumble upon some reviews and decided that actually I don't have the patience for such approaches. Then, two weeks after, I started it again and finished it within a couple of hours.
The good news: I was definitely in love with the writing. Unpredictable, with interesting twists and some ironic-dadaistic irresistible interventions - 'Delhi has no bird-watchers, only machine-listeners'; 'One session was called off because a stray dog wandered into the court and bit a policeman'. As a reader, you are introduced to a completely different reality, with its own norms and codes and meanings, where irony and drama are just names given sometimes to the same reality.
The complicated news: The topic as such is highly complicated with a high risk of ending up in stereotyping, especially if you have already some own thoughts about terrorism - meaning completely rejecting it, on all possible grounds. This was the main reason why I decided to give up the book at first. The idea of understanding how someone turns into a terrorist is appealing and particularly in the light of the last decade of terror in the middle of our Western world is appealing. However, terror was part of the history of our modern world long before there were Facebook symbols to add to your profile (nothing wrong with this, anyway). What I am afraid of when I have in my hands a book about the motivations is to deal with the common tiers-mondiste approach according to which someone turns into a terrorist because of oppression. (The book mentions en passant Carlos the Jackal and 'Palestine' as part of the discussion between terrorists). The people who end up placing bombs in public places in The Association of Small Bombs are not radical Muslims but operate in an environment where Muslims are victims of discrimination and the partition continues to be a cruel reality of the everyday corrupted political environment. In two places is quoted Gandhi according to which Jews faced with the Shoah would have decide to suicide en masse - a completely wrong approach as, sorry Mr. Gandhi but the Jews survived, although coping for more than a generation of trauma, but they, they survived.
In a world completely upside down criminals are heroes and everyone is a potential terrorist, but this is not the world we, normal people want, but they, the terrorists and there is no justification for it.
The book creates an interesting investigation into the ways - more or less subtle - in which a terrorist attack can destroy and challenge lives.
The Association of Small Bombs was worth reading and offers a long list of topics to discuss and approaches to challenge. We are living in a world that needs new concepts and perceptions for a different understanding of old realities and such a book can be a good incentive for the ongoing much needed conversation.

"The Association of Small Bombs" is an interesting story about how a single incident of Islamic terrorism in India affects the individuals involved. The story is told from the points of view of victim, victim's families, and terrorist. As might be imagined, this is not a happy story. But it is compelling and my recommendation is that you <i>consider carefully</i> reading it.

Mansoor's story - injured in a 1996 terrorist bomb blast as a boy in Delhi - is the most interesting. The stories of the terrorists, Shockie and Ayub, are also noteworthy. But the all-pervading sadness of the Khuranas, whose children were killed in the blast, kept my interest at arm's length.

Unfortunately, it's the unrelenting ugliness of the India described in this book that keeps it from getting a higher rating. Everything is ugly: Delhi, the people, homes, markets, you name it. There's corruption, appalling inefficiency, and squalor. You feel the heat, dust, and pain coming off every page. The author uses a lot of Indian vocabulary and jargon. I'm sure if you're familiar with India, you know just what everything is and what all the words mean. But if you're like me, and not all that familiar with India, then there are a lot of descriptions and names of things that you just don't get.

Consider reading this book. At the end, I think you'll find the story fairly compelling. Just don't expect to be be amazed.

The Association of Small Bombs tells the varied stories of people impacted by a small bombing in Dehli, India in 1996. The perspective shifts from the Kuhrana's, whose two sons were killed in the bombing; Mansoor, who was with the boys but survived the bomb; Shockie, who made and planted the bomb; and Ayub, who succumbs to violence in multiple ways.
This novel began stunningly with excellent imagery and writing. I was instantly drawn in to the complicated web Mahajan was weaving and easily covered half the book (almost) in about a day. As the novel progressed I was made to consider perspectives I'd never have thought of and stumbled across a myriad of individual sentences that were profound in their simplicity. To approach a bombing from so many perspectives, including from the point of view of the bomb itself at times, is an incredibly complex thing, and Mahajan does it well.
I gave the novel three stars out of five because there were some things that troubled me. Mahajan's occasional use of character's thoughts of rape or struggles with sexual obsession felt unnecessary and diminishing to the plot of the novel itself and were therefor off-putting. I was also worried at times that Mahajan started off with innocent and sympathetic Muslim characters and later turned them into exactly what they were fighting against: the stereotype that Muslims are inherently violent, fanatical, and responsible for the majority of bombings throughout the world. HOWEVER, if one reads closely and carefully, it can be seen that Mahajan argues against this and tries to demonstrate the falsities of this stereotype, but ultimately I felt he was only mildly successful as each Muslim character in his novel became a bomb, in his own way. It felt a bit contradictory.
Despite my luke-warm rating, I still recommend The Association of Small Bombs. Some other reviews have mentioned difficulty with the language, and though I can kind of understand that, the novel takes place in India, so there will of course be words that are unfamiliar. One can easily judge the meaning of these words from context and when they cannot be determined in that way, they are often not necessary to the understanding of the plot, though knowledge of their meaning would certainly add more depth and clarity for the reader. I think this novel is important for our ever-exploding world today. We must toss it around in our brains and let our discomfort settle in our bones so we can better understand what exactly is so unsettling about it. We must view the bombings all over the world, big and small, from multiple viewpoints and consider each a tragedy. One thing Mahajan does very well is draw our attention to the lack of attention we give to small bombings under the misguided notion that the tragedy is not as great. He urges us to understand that, in fact, the tragedy is more concentrated and isolating and he wants us to pay attention.

Karah Mahajan’s THE ASSOCIATION OF SMALL BOMBS is one of the most important books I’ve read in a long while. It begins with an act of terror – the explosion of a small bomb in an ordinary marketplace in Delhi – and follows the reverberations of the event backward and forward in time in the lives of both victims and perpetrators, exploring the unexpected yet inevitable interconnections and ultimately explaining better than I would have thought anyone could exactly what this thing called terrorism is all about. “You turn into what you hate,” one of the characters observes. I’m afraid he may be right.

This book used a lot of foreign words to describe objects. Annoying to me. The book started out pretty good then lost its way. I never liked any of the characters, and felt the story did not have a focus.

Readers who love finely written prose should consider Karan Mahajan’s novel titled, The Association of Small Bombs. Mahajan draws close attention to a car bomb in New Delhi in 1996 and explores with precision the damage to survivors, including the individuals who were injured but survived the blast, the family of the victims who were killed, those responsible for the bombing, and society overall. All these survivors bear scars. Read this novel for the fine writing, then ponder what Mahajan has to say to us about living in our complicated and conflicted world.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

Karan Mahajan’s remarkable second novel, “The Association of Small Bombs,” transports the reader to many places—literally, metaphorically, and emotionally. With a literary sleight of hand, the author deftly sets forth a mosaic-like narrative that explores the interior lives of individuals impacted by a “small bomb” ignited in the crowded market of Lajpat Nagar in Delhi, India. As Mahajan writes in the opening scene, “A good bomb begins everywhere at once.” And thus, begins the author’s memorable examination of the victims, the survivors, and the terrorists of this particular episode of violence in May of 1996. The shifting perspectives move seamlessly on the page and explore the various dimensions of what it means to suffer. Like Michael Ondaatje’s lesser-known 1977 novel, “Coming Into Slaughter” (which tells the story of Buddy Bolden, one of New Orleans’ original jazzmen), the precise, effortless language rides underneath the story, delivering a fractured, syncopated quality to the narrative while authentically depicting the broken pieces of his characters’ forever-altered lives. I highly recommend this thought-provoking, accomplished novel. It offers up a unique reading experience that challenges one’s understanding of terrorism in its many forms. With public attacks, there is a tendency to create a systemic hierarchy of the suffering in attempts to create order to an inherently chaotic and traumatic event. With “Small Bombs,” Mahajan explores the chaos and “illogical” nature of terrorism through the lens of humanity and empathy. Taken altogether, “Small Bombs” makes for a riveting and unforgettable read. Rooting for this novel to win the National Book Award in November.

The central event in tis book is a terrorist bombing in India in which two Hindu boys are killed and their Muslim friend is injured. From that point the primary focus is the young Muslim man and his circle of friends. The parents of the Hindu boys are followed to a lesser extent. The book is a fascinating look at the psychology involved when a traumatic event like a bombing occurs. This is an insightful and thought provoking novel well worth all the acclaim it has received. Mr. Mahajan is a rising star in serious literature.

A real page turner, The Association of Small Bombs, by Karan Mahajan, describes the making of a terrorist. A story from the other side, trying to decipher the mentality and treacherous journey of the poor and disenfranchise, and this novel grips us in a whirlpool of pain, fear and disappointments. It is original, gripping and for many a difficult theme to tackle. I now want to read his first novel.

Concentrating on the aftermath of a small bomb blast in a New Delhi market in the 1990s, "The Association of Small Bombs" zeroes in on the interconnected lives of those affected. Painting intimate portraits of family members and small-time terrorists, Karan Mahajan creates characters with complex existences, and often, deep humanity. Through multiple narratives Mahajan examines the circumstances that can give us strength or drive us toward devastation. The language throughout is thoughtful and sharp; neither overwrought or overly sentimental. Mahajan gets at something real in these pages — the uncertainties of living, and the inevitability that somehow life will continue on.

What an incredibly depressing, negative waste of space in my life reading this book over the past week. It's not "nihilistic" or "acrid and bracing" or " enviably adept in its handling of tragedy," but like sleepwalking through a session with a psychiatrist about the worst miseries in your life. No redeeming ending, Predictable miserable ending. Similar to my feeling about Jhumpha Lahiri novel "the lowland." Beware of the rave reviews and heed my impression.

I have very mixed feelings about this novel. When the author is telling a story--for instance, the bombing itself, the legal proceedings, the radicalization of a major character--the book is riveting. However, when the narrative stops and the digressions and retrospective recriminations of the major characters begin, the writing begins to feel overly self indulgent, wandering, and overwhelmed by graduate writing program analogies and metaphors. On balance, the book feels to me like a great story that could have been better, but too much of it is somewhat tiresome.

A realistic saga of modern day uncertainties of terroristic events and how such events shape lives of those affected, physically and emotionally! The author blends in words from Hindi into this novel in English quite innocently and effortlessly, making it more endearing and interesting. The bustling city of Delhi is described so vividly, it has almost become a character in this fictional account. All in all, this book makes for an interesting and a must read for readers in search of a good book!

Inspired by real events, not only does this wonderful novel follow the perpetrators of a terrorist attack at a Delhi marketplace but also its survivors, the parents of its victims, and the families of those who turn to extremism as a way to cope with their own alienation. In doing so, Karan Mahajan has mastered a unique and urgent portrait of one of the most disturbing, least understood malaises of our time.

Mahajan's writing is raw and engrossing and his treatment of the characters impacted of terrorism like nothing I've read before. I couldn't put this book down. You won't be able to do so either.

The Association of Small Bombs is written by a writer on fire! The novel marries glittering language to a keenness of perception that is rare and then brings both of those talents to bear with deep empathy on a series of events that most writers would find frightening to regard with such nearness. The result is a novel about terrorism that is both timely and timeless. A must read!

A beautiful meditation on grief, and on the lives of frustrated, ambitious young men caught up in the bewildering cosmopolitan storm of modern Delhi. Every sentence is, and is intended to be, a detonation. Irreducible to its putative subject, this is a novel that'll be around for generations.

Exceptional piece of fiction. Compelling storyline, brilliant weaving together of characters' journeys through life and where they intersect.Simple clear writing depicting a deep, rich culture of a place and time so well I could smell it, I knew the people intimately.

The Association of Small Bombs begins with an explosion at an open market square in Delhi. Kahan Mahajan first chapter is masterful in the way it can focus like a laser on small details like the way people held their hands against their wounds “as if they had smashed eggs against their bodies in hypnotic agreement and were unsure about what to do with the runny, bloody yolk” and yet also take a panoramic step back, claiming that, “a good bombing begins everywhere at once.”

However, bombs actually ripple outwards from their source, we just cannot perceive its movement. Mahajan shows that ripple effect in the organization of the book, tracing the aftermath and its effects on people like the Khuranas whose two sons died in the blast, Mansoor Ahmed who was with their sons and was injured in the blast, Shookie who planted the bomb, and on Ayub Azmi who was not even there.

The Khuranas, as parents who lose their children, struggle with their grief. While I think many people will identify with Deepa, the mother, the father Vikas is troublesome. I think he’s a failed character, to be honest. He was depressive even before his sons were killed and seems utterly destroyed by their deaths, but then again and again we are told he did not love his sons. The contradictions in Vikas’ character with his actions, focusing his life on a documentary of the bombing and on foudning the Association of Small Bombs to urge never forgetting those who die in the many smaller attacks that don’t shake the world do not seem what someone who did not love his children would do. The gravitas and respect accorded an official victim is not the motivation, grief is and where there is grief, there is love.

The Ahmeds were the Khuranis token Muslim friend to prove how liberal they were. Mansoor survived the bombing, but his injuries affected him for years. As an Muslim, though, his status as a victim was less official, less respected. When he goes to college in America and is there on September 11th, the suspicion and rejection of his classmates makes life painful. Repetitive Stress Injury complicated by his past injuries sends him back to India where he gets involved in a social justice group working for reconciliation, supporting those arrested after the bombing that injured him because they are believed to be, and are, innocent. Perhaps one of the central themes of the book are summed up in the description of that group of students.

“The members of Peace For All were not radicals. They were eminently reasonable people, students engrossed in careers, people who wanted to be Indians but had discovered themselves instead to be Muslims and had started to embrace their identities. In their alienation, their desire to be included in the mainstream, Mansoor recognized himself.”

It is there he meets Ayub who brings the story full circle by becoming radicalized, shifting from his belief in Gandhian nonviolence to the nihilistic belief that terrorism is the answer. There is another critical insight here. The precipitating incident that pushed Ayub toward violence was personal, not political. He thinks a lot about Mohammed Atta and decides that for Atta, too, his decision to attack the World Trade Center must have been personal. “Earlier he’d felt the attack was just revenge against American imperialism, but now he’d come to see that the reasons for such aggression would have to be idiosyncratic, personal.” This seems a critical insight, too. After all, while millions may be disaffected and angry with the mess of a world we have allowed and created, they don’t all express it violently. Only a few do, and the ultimate decision, the ultimate reason, is found in their lives, their character, their choices.

The Association of Small Bombs is well-written and interesting. It discusses many important contemporary issues that we need to spend more time thinking about and addressing. However, I think there are some serious flaws in the book. Vikas Khurani felt inauthentic, like an authorial construct rather than a real father. Mahajan had to struggle to pull this story into a circle. The characters and the story itself didn’t want to go there and the effort to force the story to cycle back was evident. The strings were showing.

Then, of course, there’s the problem of all the terrorists in the story being Muslim. There is mention of the Gujarat Riots, but they are not indicted as terrorism, though that is what they were. While Mahajan explains why Muslims have a right to be angry, as the current Prime Minister of India is a man most people believe to have been as innocent of the Gujarat Riots as Ariel Sharon was of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. There’s empathy and understanding of how they are alienated from Indian society by the actions and attitudes of India’s government and people. Still, it’s a tired story, a hopeless story that seems determined to believe everything and everyone is futile.

A more interesting, and more daring, story would have found Vikas Khurani or perhaps one of his cousins, motivated by hatred and revenge for the original bombing joining with the Abhinav Bharat or some other Hindu nationalist terrorist group. Perhaps Vikas would expiate his guilt for not loving his sons enough with violence. Instead, we get the tired story of radicalized Muslims choosing terror while the terrorism of others is erased. I could see Vikas after the blast of the bomb he created feeling that same anti-climactic disappointment and futility as Shookie did after the first bombing. That would have interesting.

Karan Mahajan's first book weaves an intricate tale through the lives of relative unknowns in India. What starts of literarily with an explosion , stews amazing layer of well defined characters and defines how the marginalized can go through radicalization in the moat innocuous of circumstances. A must read of 2016.

Penetrating but kindly exposure to the lives and thoughts of all those involved in a "small" marketplace bombing in India; the bombers, the bombed, and their families. Should be required reading for all those of us unlikely to be targeted but full of uninformed opinions.

“Mansoor walked with Ayub down the stairs and into the service lane before the main road, where leaves were coming unclipped from the dead trees and rattling down on the street, like the tail of a distant dragon.” Huh? This book is full of painfully bad prose and metaphors so awkward they literally stop you on the page. I found myself constantly losing the story while I tried to sort through jumbles of words for something that made sense. The characters are all pathetic. The occasional bit of dialogue is disjointed and illustrative of nothing. About halfway through this depressing story I felt so empty and miserable I had to throw it away. I doubt that any of the people who gave this book such sparkling reviews actually read all the way through it.

Creative and well-written, Mr. Mahajan's writing style is fantastic. If you haven't already, definitely check out his first novel "Family Planning." His novels are a beautifully woven web of prose that will leave you thinking about the book and its social commentary long after you finish the last page.

A wonderful novel about a terrible event, told with indelible compassion both for the victims of terror and the terrorists themselves. I bought this book for my grandson, but couldn't help reading it myself. Ha!

Karan Mahajan has written a truly devastating book on terror, more relevant this year than ever. It's a crowded world of so much 24-hour news analysis of the terrorists that haunt us -- but here is a novel that uses literature to try to figure out what makes an attacker tick. Wonderful pacing. Complex characters. It is fast and unpredictable.

While the plot was compelling and the reasons why some young Muslims are driven to terrorism, the book was disjointed and sometimes difficult to follow. I particularly disliked the introduction of one of the main characters halfway jnto the book. And, although I've read many books about India's Muslim community and felt the animosity between it and the Hindu majority while traveling there, I think the author simplified the problem and the conclusion of the book showed that fact.

Early in the book, I was drawn to the characters. Well written stories of the effect of terrorism on victims & families, taken to a personal level. And as a bonus, I was gaining some insight specific to the issue of Hindu vs Muslim in India. About half way through the narrative became tedious and boring to me. Somewhat disjointed and lengthy. If you have a deep interest in understanding terrorism, its effects on the innocent, and the progression of a peace lover to terrorist, you might make it to the end of the story. I quit at 75%

This book is a masterpiece. Mahajan's prose is stunning. His research into terrorism is thorough but never feels heavy. The narrative is initially fractured and freewheeling, like the bomb, and then gains a lethal momentum. There's a striking image and a revealing insight on every page. I bought several copies to give to friends. Essential reading, particularly in our current geo-political climate.

Many Americans think that tragedy only happens to us. I was on a trip to India when a woman I was with was going on about how Americans have suffered because of terror. Luckily, the Indian man we were with let her know loud and clear that Americans have been lucky. Did I enjoy this book? No, but it sure made me think. I had no idea that the current Indian prime minister was connected with violence against Muslims. What captured my attention in this book was the way the author, not only looked at the Muslims who set of the small bombs, but gave the perspective of a person who was hurt in a bombing as well as parents who lost 2 middle school boys to a bombing. The ending of course reflects the sorrow spread throughout all the connecting stories in the book.