Interview | Abir Mukherjee on his novel, ‘The Pinnacle’, set in a luxury Mumbai highrise

In a previous life, Abir Mukherjee was into mergers and acquisitions and in the course of his work, the Bengali-Scottish author visited Mumbai often. It was his interactions with the city’s super rich that became the starting point for his latest book, The Pinnacle (Penguin Random House), set in a luxury skyscraper in Mumbai.

“I made some good friends from that section of Indian society,” Mukherjee says over a video call from Surrey, England, where he lives. “After the lockdown, a few of them were in London, and they talked about the sorts of things that went on during the COVID-19 lockdown. So many household helpers, who were seen as quasi-family, were laid off during the pandemic.”