Custody,
MANJU KAPUR
(RANDOM HOUSE INDIA)

For her intensely candid and unforgiving novels, this author is often praised as the 'great chronicler of the modern Indian family'. In this, her fifth novel, Kapur lays bare the treacherous battles that a divorce brings with it. Raman and Shagun Kaushik are a slightly mismatched but superficially happy couple with two young children. Raman works for a multinational soft-drink major, which is referred to as The Brand, and the dashing, successful Ashok Khanna is his boss. The story is quite predictable from here on, as Shagun and Ashok are drawn to one another. But what makes Custody compelling is Kapur's stark, searing prose – the war that a once-in-love couple can wage with one another is indicative of how cruel people can be once empathy is lost.