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Shashi Tharoor. The Five-Dollar Smile. New York. Arcade (Little, Brown, distr.). 1993. 175 pages. $18.95.
In the foreword to his short-story collection The Five-Dollar Smile Shashi Tharoor tells us that after the publication of The Great Indian Novel and Show Business (see respectively WLT 65:4, p. 770, and 67:3, p. 678), a variety of people showed interest in his early work; hence his decision to bring out the present volume. He says that he began writing at a very young age, his first "story" emerging when he was only six. The stories collected here, however, were written during his adolescence. In fact, one of them was composed when he was fifteen. Tharoor clarifies that he wrote for audiences of mass-circulation magazines and to be published and read, not to pursue an obscure literary esthetic. "This," he says, "in turn defines the nature and the limitations of my work." Surely the critic must bear these facts in mind when reviewing the book.
The Five-Dollar Smile should be considered Tharoor's first book...