Surprisingly life affirming in view of the tough subject matter, these five stories of contemporary India are cleverly connected, creating a fascinating and thought-provoking whole as the characters struggle towards a better life.

I didn’t realise this was 5 different stories. I’m not normally a lover of short stories so was out of my comfort zone bit did enjoy them

5 short stories from India. I found it hard to keep reading to the end. I am not really a short story reader.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

A brutal taste of modern India, brilliantly told and linked between a number of stories. Not for the faint hearted, it shows a society where women, children and animals are scared, abused and so often hungry. It tells the story of a society evolving and not always finding it easy to incorporate the old and the new.
The descriptions made the geography (from big cities to small isolated villages) and the characters (rich and poor) come alive, and it wasn’t always comfortable reading. However it was real and it was thought provoking. I am very glad I read it.
#Netgalley #AStateOfFreedom

Five essays in the form of novellas make up this novel about the desire for a better life.
Each loosely connected story is rife with despair, hope, and determination, Modern India is on show, warts and all and it makes for uncomfortable reading.
The writing itself is great, especially when Mukherjee writes about family duty: ‘Raja-da said, ‘We brothers went to our village pathshala, we didn’t have much education. I was determined to send my boys to school. I want them to have a different life, a better life. This life of a farmer, cultivating rice, growing a few vegetables… it’s a difficult one. We struggle. Our days are not easy. I don’t want this for my boys.’’
The characters are vividly described and almost all are morally dubious, making this a depressing but raw and realistic read.
Important, but definitely not a beach read.

Five stories from India – an eye-opener and nicely-put together

This series of five stories take place in India and show the huge divide between rich and poor., between urban and rural life. Three of the stories are quite depressing while the other two are more uplifting. The author had delved into the relationship between master and servant (practically slave in some areas), most of which are abusive but not always.

Characters are well-developed and the writing style varies deliberately throughout this collection to illustrate distinctions. Many of the stories flow well and I enjoyed the more uplifting stories in particular.

This novel is a series of five seemingly unconnected stories of differing lengths about people who are living in isolation, despite living in one of the most populated countries on the planet. Some recognise that they are adrift from their families or their culture whilst others haven’t even the luxury to think about why they feel utterly alone. As Mukherjee shows the reader, ‘A State of Freedom’ is not an enviable position in which to be for the characters in this fiction.
There are moments in all five stories when we have a fleeting glimpse of one of the other stories. For example, the Westernised child in ‘1’ sees the performing bear and his owner from the safety of the airconditioned car which has been held up by the death of the itinerant builder who’s plunged from shaky scaffolding. The first and the last stories of the collection which makes up the novel are the least successful. The wealthy man who has some sort of spiritual or supernatural experience at Agra whilst worrying about the lethargy of his son, attributing this to a lack of interest in the culture rather than ill health, comes across as more of a vehicle to kick start the themes of the novel rather than as a believable character. Likewise, the quasi stream-of -consciousness short final section of the book appears artificial after the intensely realistic sections ‘2’, ‘3’ and ‘4’ although the final words, ‘…he is husk of course he is at last…’ are not only memorable for the image they conjure but also remind us that life can be quickly wiped out.
This is not a novel which will not encourage Indian tourism! Sections ‘2’, ‘3’ and ‘4’ are all deeply moving and often shocking reads, and they do feel authentic, not least because of all the cultural and regional detail woven into the stories of the characters’ desperation or ill-judged decisions. I have rarely read anything more painful than the story of Lakshman and his bear Raju; at times I had to put down the book unable to cope with any more description of Lakshman’s cruelty, ignorance and desperation or the bear’s suffering and servitude. Milly’s story (‘4’) adds some light to the often unremitting shade of the other tales and Mukherjee’s decision to place it where he does, coming after the utter despair of Lakshman’s situation, allows the reader to come up for air – momentarily!
Mukherjee’s storytelling is often very powerful although the quality of his stories is uneven. He can conjure a world in a couple of sentences and this book is well worth reading. Just be prepared to push on past Section 1.
Thanks to NetGalley and Chatto and Windus for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Five connected stories set in modern India; these are difficult to read in the sense that the subject matter is controversial, harrowing but ultimately compelling.
A life can be changed by accident, luck or fate but is the change which is strived for really possible in the India of today?

I want to say I really enjoyed this book but enjoy seems wrong because of the subject matter. It was a very deep read but at times quite disturbing. Dont let this put you off though. This is actually five stories of various lengths, all set in today's India. Several of the stories clearly impact on each other. I'm certainly glad I read it & would recommend to others.

A book that is difficult to read at times but that gives a real insight into India of today. The writing is intelligent, however at times I found it a bit dry and it didn't grip me, however ovreally a good read.

Reading this felt like going on vacation to a place that just makes you feel guilty about your own stable and financially secure life. We are taken to India, a country where the gap between the rich and poor is so wide that it is almost hard to believe all those people are living door to door.

A State of Freedom is a collection of draining short-stories, that are all linked to each other. In the first one, a father visits India with his son after having moved to the United States, where his own culture manages to shock him, making him feel like a stranger in his own country.

During their uncomfortable visits of tourist attractions, they pass a construction worker, who later gets a story of his own. This sense of interconnectedness makes the world Mukherjee paints a vivid and pulsing one. But dominating in his stories is the poverty, the everyday struggle of people who live in a society marked by the unequal distribution of money and caste-thinking.

This is certainly an ambitious project, especially as the author doesn't shy away from showing grief and poverty without end. Certainly it is important not to look away when one is confronted with the dark sides of our world and its people, but as a work of fiction this was a struggle to get through, as one nightmarish scenario would follow the next.

Even though the stories themselves were all different, they all lead to the same conclusion and it was hard for me to find reasons to keep on reading after I got the point A State of Freedom was making. There is little direct speech and the writing didn't make me feel particularly connected to either character, I felt like an observer more than a part of the actual story, which suited the reflective commentary this work wants to present, but didn't necessarily help me engage with the story.

All in all, this was certainly an informative read, yet one that was neither engaging nor particularly fun and I would have felt perfectly satisfied had I been presented with just one of these five stories included.

This is a very powerful novel about life, hope and despair in India. The five stories and one novella are linked by characters who appear in passing in one another's lives. These stories show the full spectrum of poverty, cruelty. ignorance, disease, death, murder, hunger and deprivation which is life in the sub-continent. I found it absorbing and distressing but very well written. I particularly like the way the final story is written, reflecting the thoughts of the narrator. This author has previously been short-listed for the Man Booker prize. This should also be a contender.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest and independent review.

I’m sorry, but as much as I really wanted to enjoy this book, it just didn’t grab me. One or two of the stories were interesting (such as Milly’s), but I found myself only continuing to read to see how everything what the together.

I did find the book very well written though, with great descriptive language used, to the point I could almost imagine myself in the scenes.

It was just unfortunate I didn’t connect with the stories enough.

A State of Freedom comprises five India-set sections, each of them focusing on a different individual and their quandaries, crises and desperate attempts to turn their life around. Mukherjee’s characters are so well drawn and their plights so affecting that we stop quibbling over how to categorise the book and simply lose ourselves in masterful storytelling.

Hot or miss, but mainly misleeeding. it felt more like a series of short stories than a novel, and more theme than narrative driven. I think clearer marlketing could help align reader expectations and reach a more appreciatove audience

Did not finish. Every review of this compelled me to enjoy it, not least because of the recoomendations from writers I love, like Sarah Waters and Karen Joy Fowler, but ultimately, my hopeless inability to appreciate short stories kicked in. This is a novel but divided up into four separate (though linked) stories and once I finished the first one and realised I was leaving that particular tale, I just couldn't make myself start to invest in a whole new person, time, place, knowing that would have to be abandoned too. It's purely a personal taste issue - the writing was visceral and he is clearly an excellent author. I just need to know I'm in a novel for the long haul!

A State of Freedom follows the lives of five characters in contemporary India and whilst each character has their own discrete part of the novel they soon intertwine and play roles in the stories and backstories of the others. The novel is an observation of the deep inequality and exploitation within Indian society.

To be perfectly honest I found it rather wordy and very depressing.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

Rating: 3.5

This is an illuminating and fascinating book we read of what life is like in rural and city India. It is bittersweet seeing the hopes of the characters beaten down by the need to survive, to live day by day and, yet, hoping for that opportunity which will bring a better life. It is an honest insight into the lives of the poor and the way in which they have to live. The attitudes towards educating children – the difference between how boys are treaded and how girls are treated. The expectations of male and female, how each cope with their situations and how attitude, strength, mental strength and, perhaps, a little luck and kindness can be the difference between surviving, living and dying. We also get a look at the better off, those who have had opportunity and education, have good jobs perhaps travelling abroad for education or work coming back with more liberal thoughts and attitudes but will they help change society, help bring progress, help India build a better way of life for it’s people – could they even attempt it?

It is a wonderful, awful look at contemporary India. A huge country with huge, complicated issues. A country so set in tradition it is difficult to see how change can be made or whether it should be and yet it is being changed haphazardly partly from external influences, partly from the small steps that are being taken by those who simply want ‘a better life’ for themselves and their families.

Read this book, take a look at the lives of Milly, Renu, Soni, the ‘fox’ brothers, and so on. Their stories are not easy to read, sometimes they are quite shocking, horrendous, appalling but, ultimately, each is about striving always striving for but, sadly, rarely attaining a better life.

e-ARC from Penguin (Chatto & Windus and Vintage) via NetGalley – thanks to all.

5 interesting short stories set in India. A nice book worth reading the five stories are all different but the last one relates back to the first stort

This book opens with a moving story of a shocking loss - a sick boy - soon it moves to our athor's ancestreal home - and food, important to him, as it is to his family and the servants, is a big part of the themes of the story. Deft and captivating throughout - each story contributes to sense of what it is to live apart from home full of tradition in a new secular land - the good things and the onesie that drag you down. I loved this book, and it bore reading twice - which i did!! Highly recommended - it is very affecting, so have handkerchiefs nearby. Especially at the end.