A Pack of Lies

Ginny is potent, addictive, and as delicious and nutritious as nicotine. Sometimes tragic, sometimes funny but always sexy, she improvises her way through her days with unintended honesty and compulsive joy, and very little morality of the conventional kind.

A Pack of Lies is Ginny’s ruthless look at her unlikely life in Bombay in the eighties. She is quite unintentionally disturbing in her look at divorce, incest, friendship, and sexuality. Ignoring the way things should be, she makes us question them. It is not Ginny who lies, but the world around her that refuses her candor, denies her truths, and turns her away as the girl who cries wolf. She is uncompromising and truthful, at least with herself. In a life measured by touch and taste, there seems very little, after all, to lie about. This novel feels uncomfortably like a memoir, but, as the title declares, it is A Pack of Lies.

From reviews for Urmilla Deshpande’s A Pack Of Lies (Westland/Tranquebar)

“The best thing about the book is that you will reach the last page and still feel like you haven’t completely figured out most of the characters. They are not as fraught with cliché as most fiction archetypes. There are no glowing lights at the end of the tunnel. In this, lies Urmilla Deshpande’s skill as a story teller…”

– Deccan Herald

“… is likely to acquire either of the two tags – a “sex novel” or a coming-of-age chintzy attempt at bolstering “female independence” in a male fiefdom. Thankfully, it’s much more than that.”
– Hindustan Times

“Ginny is the female counterpart of Holden Caulfield… This makes her infuriatingly random and self-destructive, but also endearing in her naive and carefree manner.”
– Femina

“It’s engaging, brutal, at times sad, but certainly sharp and edgy.”
– Worldwide News India

“A Pack of Lies is an intelligent person’s book.”
– The Asian Age