Even
though one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, ‘Em and the Big Hoom’, by Jerry
Pinto definitely makes you question your resolve against doing so. The purple
cover with the image of Em’s head, the dark edges and the gray paper, mimic a
vintage look ensuring the cover artist and designer high praise.
To
begin with, here’s the back cover book
summary.
In a one-bedroom-hall-kitchen in Mahim,
Bombay, through the last decades of the twentieth century, lived four
love-battered Mendeses: mother, father, son and daughter. Between Em, the
mother, driven frequently to hospital after her failed suicide attempts, and
The Big Hoom, the father, trying to hold things together as best he could, they
tried to be a family.
Essentially,
‘Em and the Big Hoom’ is a semi-autobiographical account from the view point of
a son, living in a one BHK flat in Mahim, about his mentally unhealthy mother
Imelda (Em), her illness – the causes, symptoms and in turn, its effect on the lives
of the whole family, Augustine (Big Hoom), Susan, their daughter and of course
Jerry, although he remains unnamed throughout the novel.