Soft Animal

For readers of Sally Rooney and Curtis Sittenfeld, a razor-sharp and thought-provoking novel about a young couple during India's surreal COVID lockdown
March 2020: Thirty-six-year-old Mallika Rao is largely insulated from the struggles of the millions fighting for their existence all over India. Instead, her Delhi flat and husband threaten to imprison her as she searches for the confidence that has always cluded her. A rescue dog in her care provides more fulfilment than her husband-who is consumed by work and self obsession while she confronts the universal challenges of having a woman's body.
Soft Animal unfolds in urgent present tense with illuminating flashbacks, whip-smart dialogue and conspiratorial focenotes. Bringing the deftness of deadpan humour and the precision of meticulous social observation to the self- delusions of India's privileged urban middle class, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's latest channels an uncomfortably-and sometimes heartbreakingly-intimate experience of millennial marriage that is seldom portrayed but all too real.