The house of blue mangoes

This is a novel about two things: a family and a village, The village Chevathar is set on the banks of India's southernmost river, at the point where its flows into the Gulf of Mannar. It's an idyllic setting, typical of villages on the Coromandel Coast. There are temples, a fort, a church the big house where the Dorai family live, a beach, and groves of mango trees the blue mangoes of the title The story begins in the last year of the nineteenth century with Solomon Dorai. As the headman of Chevathar, he is desperately trying to hold together the fraying ends of villages life at a time of huge social and political unease. The spectre of caste unrest hangs about the South, threatening everything that Solomon holds dear family land, prosperity. When violence finally erupts it takes Solomon and the traditional structure of village life with it. Three generations of Dorais come and go in the village by the sear, winning and losing the battle for Chevathar. There are Solomon's sons, the dazzling athletic Aaron and the studious Daniel, both exiled by their father's death but in different ways, both determined to make their mark on the world. And there is Daniels son Kannan, cast out of the paradise that his father creates on the bones of the old Chevathar.