To The Last Page

In July 1980, the author of Shantaram Gregory David Roberts, a modern day Ned Kelly, a heroin addict who had been involved in some serious crime and armed robberies to support his habit, escaped from a maximum-security prison in Australia. While in the prison he was subjected to all kinds of torture and abuse and his escape during broad daylight made him Australia’s most wanted man for ten years until his capture in 1990. This part of Roberts’ background is principally covered in the first page of this almost 1000 page novel, and if that can be passed over so quickly you just know that what he has to say about his 10 years of freedom must be worth reading. It is, without any shadow of a doubt. The novel opens with the narrator arriving in Bombay, under a false passport bearing the name of Lindsay. He immediately has the good fortune to meet Prabaker, an Indian who is to be his guide into everything there is to know about Bombay and being Indian. He also gets to know and falls in love