Review: 'Age of Vice'

©2023 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Age of Vice
By Deepit Kapoor
Literary Fiction
Riverhead Books

In the aftermath of a chaotic, deadly car crash in Delhi, a once-trusted driver is thrown in jail, a once-beloved woman is discarded and the son of a mobster once again finds out his limited options. Age of Vice is more than a story about beautiful and rich people in India. It's a story of how different this nation of old kingdoms is for those in different stratas of society, how the idea of India is admired and abused by foreigners and, mostly, it's a story of love and loss.

Deepit Kapoor's novel is the story of three main characters. The driver, Ajay, comes from abject poverty. His story is a fascinating one of what might happen when one lives to serve and only wants his family back. Wherever he ends up, Ajay learns what needs to be done, and does it. When it seems he is being rewarded for his loyalty and diligence, in truth, he is just ending up deeper in servitude.

What is fascinating about Ajay is that he is not a character to pity. He is not a fool. He knows who he is and what he wants, and he will work as hard as he can to make that happen. His interior journey is a fascinating one.

His abilities lead Ajay to becoming the driver, and basically keeper, of Sonny Wadia. Sonny is a golden boy of hard-partying young India. His father and uncle are renowned criminal masterminds and political bosses. Soon, a woman becomes an integral part of Sonny's circle. Neda is a journalist, yet she is portrayed as aloof from Ajay's perspective. He doesn't understand why Neda is so important to Sonny, and she may be unlikeable to a reader.

But then the perspective switches to Neda, and a lot is made clear about her and her relationship to Sonny. She is at first fascinated by Sonny, and tries to get to know him as part of the investigative journalism pieces her mentor/would-be lover is writing. Neda falls in love with Sonny and wants to protect him from his worst inclinations. Of course this is going to end disastrously.

Sonny's worse inclinations may not be his abiity to ingest great amounts of liquor and drugs. It may be his dual desires of wishing to impress his disapproving father, and wanting to actually do some good in society. These two wishes are mutually exclusive. And they leave Sonny open to being used.

Kapoor does something that I deeply appreciate as a reader. When she is writing Ajay's story, we see both how AJay views things and some clues as to the broader picture. It's the same when she's writing Neda's story, and Sonny's. And as the novel progresses and the points of view change, the reader sees how what she learned before and what she is reading now work together to form a more clear picture of all three characters.

Age of Vice is powerful, violent entertainment. The scope of crime and corruption, the ins and outs of how people use and get used, is portrayed vividly. But this novel also is poignant and shows how important love and loss can be in determining the course of a lifetime. This reader hopes for more from the author, especially regarding these characters.