'To watch the wily Chopras jostle for dominion-not just over the crumbling walls of their shared home, but over the very historical and moral record of their age-is pure pleasure.'

-MADHURI VIJAY

'This family saga feels like wonderfully told backstories of people you have certainly met at a Delhi wedding, even as it is filled with memorable lines about marriage and the nature of tortured people. This is a tale about family that only an Indian can tell.'

-MANU JOSEPH

'Brutal, knifesharp, tender-Karan Mahajan packs an entire world of desire, incendiary politics, greed, and transgression into this engrossing tale of a family bartering old myths for new.'

-NILANJANA ROY


In Delhi, in the 1970s, the sons and daughters of S.P. Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together in a sprawling complex-A-19 Modern Colony-vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the end of the decade, the descendants are scrambling

to define their own futures in a still-young nation on the brink of transformation.

Newlyweds Gita and Sachin Chopra immigrate to America, believing it's the only way to escape the pressure cooker that is Sachin's prominent family. Yet Delhi remains an inescapable force, one that keeps pulling them back, even as Gita is menaced by Sachin's predatory uncle, Laxman. A man of restless ambition, Laxman ascends the ranks of a rising Hindu nationalist movement, while Vibha, his sister, tries to keep the peace and the reputation of the family intact.

As India erupts in violence in the 1990s, and Laxman gains power, The Complex compels one to ask: Could the ferment in A-19 reflect the convulsions of a nation? Equal parts brilliant family saga and piercing political drama, this is an extraordinary novel of revenge and redemption, ambition and undoing, loyalty and love, by one of the most lauded voices in contemporary fiction.