A Casual Brutality Author:Neil Bissoondath The first novel from Canadian literary giant Neil Bissoondath, now reissued in Scribner: A dark and powerful novel about the failure of a decent man to come to terms with the moral disintegration of his Caribbean homeland. Dr Raj Ramsingh begins to wonder what has really brought him back from Toronto's easy urbanity to the Caribbean island of hi... more »s birth. Was it for the sake of his aged Hindu grandparents who had proudly brought him up when he was orphaned, or so that his small son Rohan would know his extended family? Or had Raj, like so many others, been seduced back by the rumour of wealth easily acquired in the island's unexpected oil prosperity? But now, in the decline of the economic boom, the flow of easy money is quickly drying up, the orgy of acquisition being replaced by the anger of sudden deprivation. Raj believes he detects paranoia in his cousin Surein's talk of weapons. But houses are being turned into burglar-proof bunkers, policemen on street patrol clutch rifles and sub-machine guns, and the modest shop that had enabled his grandfather to send Raj to medical school in Toronto has been firebombed...« less