Review | ‘Slow Burn’ by Amal Singh holds up a fantastical mirror to identity and ambition
Amal Singh's novel 'Slow Burn' explores themes of identity and ambition through the story of a struggling Mumbai actor who enters a parallel reality. By using the doppelgänger trope, the book examines the moral complexities of success and the desire for self-recognition.
Why it matters
The novel provides a psychological critique of modern aspirations and the societal pressures of fame in contemporary urban India.
At the heart of Amal Singh’s latest novel, Slow Burn , is a fantasy shared by perhaps all human beings — of living a bigger, better version of our lives. Only here, Singh uses tropes like the magic mirror and the doppelgänger to complicate this fantasy and ponder over questions of identity, moral ambiguity and self-recognition.
Set in contemporary Mumbai, Slow Burn is the story of struggling actor Rishi Tripathi who hasn’t been able to make it big despite chasing his dreams for six years. On a bad day, after another audition goes wrong, he punches the mirror in his room only to realise that the act has resulted in him entering a different world. It’s still Mumbai, but a different version. He names this city Mumbai-Right, as opposed to the Mumbai-Left he has left behind. Here, Rishi is Rrish Kumar, a star with many hits to his name.
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