Aravind Jayan

Author: Aravind Jayan

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Appa and Amma have driven home a shiny new Honda Civic to show off to their neighbours in Blue Hills housing colony. But their triumph is short lived. Their eldest son Sreenath is behaving strangely, and the reason soon becomes clear: a secretly filmed video of Sreenath and his girlfriend Anita has been posted to a porn site, and nearly everyone they know has seen it.

The ensuing war - with Sreenath and Anita on one side and their families on the other - becomes a news sensation, emblematic of a wider generational struggle. The novel is narrated by Sreenath's younger brother, just as eager to rebel against conventional morality. But to keep his family together he will have to compromise his integrity and, in doing so, bring buried tensions between him and his brother to the surface.

Full of dark comedy and insight about shame and the online generation, this is a poignant story about now told by a narrator who will beguile and surprise you.

“A sparkling debut, full of tenderness and mischief. It’s as if Roth and Narayan had a baby.”
- Aatish Taseer, author of The Way Things Were

“Told with dry and restrained humour ... Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors stands out not for what it tackles ... but for its graceful sidestepping of the usual narrative routes, without any loss of impact or verisimilitude. Jayan's book is the calling card of a novelist of promise and surprising maturity.”
- The Times Literary Supplement

“A breezy tale of intergenerational conflict, with a side order of class consciousness.”
- The Financial Times

“Smart, utterly original, and beautifully rendered -- in the age of the internet, still stories of family remain ageless. Jayan sets us in a moment when the past and present are in precarious balance and leaves us to settle for ourselves what has been broken and what will never be. Loved it.”
- Karen Joy Fowler, Booker-shortlisted author of International bestseller We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“It's impossible not to love this book. You'll laugh and laugh until you find yourself devastated by the last thirty or so pages, and you’ll still be laughing. Oh, did I also mention unputdownable?”
- Neel Mukherjee, Booker-shortlisted author of The Lives of Others

“Truly infectious... a fresh take on the family drama, the internet novel and the comedy of manners, slicing through inherited ideas around shame, honour, and reputation.”
- The Guardian

“One of the wittiest, cleverest, most perceptive books I've read about India in years.”
- Rahul Raina, author of How To Kidnap The Rich

“Laugh-out-loud funny – a beguiling debut by a writer of great charm.”
- Paul Murray, author of National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Skippy Die

“Humorous, insightful and enormously touching ... an exquisite debut.”
- Clare Allan, author of The Orange Prize