There are many Mentals in this city. We shouldn’t be afraid of them. Our gods are too busy to hear our prayers, but ghosts—ghosts have nothing to do but wait and wander…they are always listening to our words because they are bored and that’s one way to pass the time.
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: Although the novel is driven by a commitment to journalistic docu-realism in its recreation of the blighted conditions in India’s slums, the novel also explores the fascination among India’s poorest with the forces of the supernatural that help the basti residents endure such conditions. Without genuine hope for release from poverty, the residents rely on the supernatural to explain their destitute life. Drawing on Muslim, Hindu, and Christian systems of paranormal entities, the novel suggests how belief in such supernatural forces, both benevolent and malevolent, shape strategies for explaining the difficult and manifestly unfair...