Pursuits
Book Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo
Journalist Katherine Boo’s debut book zooms in on an Indian slum
This article is for subscribers only.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers:
Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
By Katherine Boo
Random House; 256 pp; $27
The cramped and bustling city formerly known as Bombay has Dickensian qualities. Minutes away from some of the most expensive real estate in the world, you can find tubercular families living in concrete drainage pipes. The scale of Mumbai’s divisions may explain why, in recent years, the city has been the subject of nonfiction of the highest quality: Meenal Baghel’s Capote-style reconstruction of a sensational murder, Death in Mumbai; Sonia Faleiro’s Beautiful Thing, an eye-popping study of bar dancers; and Suketu Mehta’s bestseller, Maximum City.