title: Em and the Big Hoom: A Novel
author:  Jerry Pinto 
description: &#8220;<i>Em and the Big Hoom </i>is a beautiful book, a child&#8217;s-eye view of madness and sorrow, full of love, pain, and, unaccountably, much wild comedy.&#160; One of the very best books to come out of India in a long, long, time.&#8221; &#8211; <b>Salman Rushdie, Best of the Booker winner for <i>Midnight&#8217;s Children</i></b><br><br>&#8216;A delightful debut . . . Written with genuine compassion and sincerity, while a sprinkling of black humour ensures it is never overly sentimental&#8217; - <b><i>Financial Times</i></b><br><br>&#8216;Jerry Pinto's prose is lively and incisive . . . moments of great humour here as well as moments of tenderness and poignancy&#8217; - <b><i>Herald</i></b><br><br>&#8216;Powerful&#8217; - <b><i>Sunday Times</i></b><br><br>&#8216;Delightful &#8230; Pinto is quite a genius with dialogue&#8217; - <b><i>Guardian</i></b><br><br>&#8220;Pinto chases the elusive portrait of a mother who simply said of herself that she was mad.&#160; As I read the novel, that also portrays a very tender marriage and the life of a Goan family in Bombay, it drowned me.&#160; I mean that in the best way.&#160; It plunged me into a world so vivid and capricious, that when I finished, I found something had shifted and changed within myself.&#160; This is a world of magnified and dark emotion.&#160; The anger is a primal force, the sadness wild and raw.&#160; Against this, the jokes are hilarious, reckless, free falling&#8230; This is a rare, brilliant book,&#160; one that is wonderfully different from any other I that I have read coming out of India.&#8221; &#8211; <b>Kiran Desai, author of <i>The Inheritance of Loss</i>, Winner of the Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award</b><br><br>&#8220;It is utterly persuasive and deeply affecting: stylistically adventurous it is never self-indulgent; although suffused with pain it shows no trace of self-pity.&#160; Parts of it are extremely funny, and its pages are filled with endearing and eccentric characters.&#160;&#160;Em and the Big Hoom&#160;is a profoundly moving book: I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this.&#8221;&#160;&#8211; Amitav Ghosh, bestselling author of&#160;<i>The Glass Palace</i><br><br>&#8216;A near-perfect account of a psychologically troubled mother and the shockwaves felt by her family. Rich and beguiling . . . Within sentences of this touching, funny and calmly shocking narrative, their son makes it clear that he knows about the things that really matter&#8217; <b><i>- <b><i>Irish Times</i></b></i></b><br><br>&#8216;Em and the Big Hoom addresses mental illness in everyday lives with powerful originality and humour&#8217; - <b><i>The Big Issue in the North</i></b><br><br>&#8220;Pinto&#8217;s narrative is both brutal and beautiful.&#8221; &#8211; <b><i>Business Standard Book Review</i></b><br><br>"A stunningly beautiful and devastatingly heartbreaking debut novel." -&#160;<b><i>Bookreporter</i></b><br><br>&#8220;Pinto&#8217;s engaging debut, ripe with wit and affection, portrays an unforgettable family of four in middleclass, Catholic Mumbai as their lives revolve around their manic-depressive matriarch, Em.&#8221; &#160;<i>&#8212;<b>&#160; Booklist</b></i><br><br>&#8220;Deeply engrossing, finely-tuned, and told with a moving and luminous clarity, this is a splendid and memorable debut.&#8221; &#8211; <b><i>The Hindu</i></b><br><br>&#8220;Although it&#8217;s set in India, <i>Em and the Big Hoom</i> is a relevant and resonant book for any audience, anywhjere, transcending territory and nationality even as it reflects upon them.&#160; It is a great big wide novel with a voice so unique and yet, somehow, so familiar that its words ring in your ears long after you&#8217;ve left these pages, calling you back, again and again, to a story that demands to be read.&#8221; &#8211; <b>Lauren Slater, author of <i>Opening Skinner&#8217;s Box</i> and<i> Prozac Diary</i></b><br><br>'Em and the Big Hoom is a joyous read that leaves you chuckling and sad, at once.' &#8211; <b><i>The Asian Age</i></b><br><br>&#8220;Pinto&#8217;s prose quicksilvers its way through time and emotions, slipping in wit and pulling out despair elegantly&#8230; Every one of Pinto&#8217;s characters feels alive and real.&#8221; &#8211; <b><i>Dnaindia.com</i></b>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;<br><br>&#8220;This&#160;is&#160;a small and beautiful book &#8230; Pinto&#8217;s writing has startling sweetness&#8221; &#8211; <b><i>Asian Review of&#160; Books</i></b>
zlib_text: THE BIG O
  
  HJ BELLUS
  
  The Big O
  Copyright © 2016 by HJ Bellus.
  Edited by: Kellie Montgomery
  Formatting: HJ Bellus
  Cover Designer: Cassy Roop @Pink Ink Designs
  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
  violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of HJ Bellus.
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
  author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business
  establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
  
  Dedication-
  To the damn letter O and to women around the world hunting down THE BIG O. May your toes
  curl with happiness and enjoyment! -HJB
  
  T
  PROLOGUE
  he Damn Diary
  Dear Diary,
  Sweats, check. An ample supply of new movies for the weekend, check. A box of powder
  doughnuts, check. Pedro o