ICE BOYS IN BELL BOTTOMS

Life is unpredictable enough for Gopi with a maverick poet-grandfather and an elusive artist-father. Add to this pesky siblings feckless film folk eccentric friends an incontinent dog a neighbour who has his privates shaved in public and all of it in a brand-new city Madras and you have Ice Boys in Bell-bottoms. Bent on making his mother's dire predictions come true Gopi becomes a Hollywood-obsessed pulp-fiction-reading know-all willing to twist the truth for a movie ticket and gamble it all away for a good time. While the country experiences the Emergency Gopi has a series of his own: first love first hangover and extra cloth for bell-bottoms. Everything comes to a head on the day of the big party when his life changes forever. Gloriously funny and surprisingly poignant this coming-of-age novel the first of a trilogy is India's answer to The 400 Blows and Cinema Paradiso. A book for anyone who's ever been a boy - or loved one.