The new novel by Salman Rushdie, a British writer of Indian origin who has lived in the USA for nineteen years, where he hides from Islamic radicals who sentenced him to death. Currently, Rushdie is one of the most famous and awarded writers in the world, laureate of the unique Booker of Bookers prize, awarded for the best work over 40 years of the prize's existence. Therefore, the release of "The Golden House" is undoubtedly one of the key literary events of recent years.
On the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, after a terrible tragedy experienced in India, the family of millionaire Neron Golden arrives in New York. Over the next eight years, the entire duration of Obama's presidency, the despotic, vulgar, and crazy Golden will sow lawlessness and barbarism around him, poisoning the lives of all connected to him.
Rushdie's new novel, unlike most of his previous works, can no longer be unconditionally classified as magical realism. It contains noticeably more realism than magic. The author himself says that, depicting in detail the modern social situation, he was inspired by the works of Charles Dickens.
"The Golden House" is simultaneously a family saga with a huge number of everyday details and psychological sketches, a social pamphlet telling about the eight-year movement of American society from hope to disappointment, confusion, and the collapse of ideals, and a philosophical reflection on the immutable and frightening laws of human existence. But most importantly — it is a vast number of fascinating, profound, and topical stories told with extraordinary skill, as always, by the writer.