The Last Ones

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Nikita Singh, Sandeepa Mukherjee Datta

She was the only person left in the city. Maybe even in the world.
Manorama wakes up to an empty world. The birds still chirp outside, but every single human being seems to have disappeared, along with her husband Vinod and their two children.
And then, even before Manorama has had a chance to deal with the situation, there is a phone call from an unknown number. Perhaps she’s not as alone as she thought. Soon, she discovers a child who claims to be her husband’s illegitimate son.
As Manorama and her unlikely companion embark on a journey to find some answers, they realize that the nightmare is only just beginning.
Can Manorama confront the demons from her past to make sense of the present, or will the truth destroy her?
The Last Ones is a crowdsourced story about loneliness and human connections, built chapter by chapter by writers across the world, brought together by the power of storytelling.
Authors include Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Nikita Singh, Sandeepa Mukherjee Datta, Kanchana Banerjee, Sumira Khan, Krusha Sahjwani, Neha Gupta, Mohana Talapatra, Snigdha Mallik, Harini Srinivasan, Gitanjali Maria, Shreya Gupta, Shylin Sam, Ananya Banerjee, Leena Pandey and Priyadarshika Ingle.

Genres: Fiction

56 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 25, 2021

About the author

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author and poet. Her themes include the Indian experience, contemporary America, women, immigration, history, myth, and the joys and challenges of living in a multicultural world. Her work is widely known, as she has been published in over 50 magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, and her writing has been included in over 50 anthologies. Her works have been translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Hindi and Japanese. Divakaruni also writes for children and young adults.Her novels One Amazing Thing, Oleander Girl, Sister of My Heart and Palace of Illusions are currently in the process of being made into movies. http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/books.... Her newest novel is Before We Visit the Goddess (about 3 generations of women-- grandmother, mother and daughter-- who each examine the question "what does it mean to be a successful woman.") Simon & Schuster.

She was born in India and lived there until 1976, at which point she left Calcutta and came to the United States. She continued her education in the field of English by receiving a Master’s degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

To earn money for her education, she held many odd jobs, including babysitting, selling merchandise in an Indian boutique, slicing bread in a bakery, and washing instruments in a science lab. At Berkeley, she lived in the International House and worked in the dining hall. She briefly lived in Illinois and Ohio, but has spent much of her life in Northern California, which she often writes about. She now lives in Texas, which has found its way into her upcoming book, Before We Visit the Goddess.

Chitra currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the Univ. of Houston. She serves on the Advisory board of Maitri in the San Francisco Bay Area and Daya in Houston. Both these are organizations that help South Asian or South Asian American women who find themselves in abusive or domestic violence situations. She is also closely involved with Pratham, an organization that helps educate children (especially those living in urban slums) in India.

She has judged several prestigious awards, such as the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award.

Two of her books, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into movies by filmmakers Gurinder Chadha and Paul Berges (an English film) and Suhasini Mani Ratnam (a Tamil TV serial) respectively. Her novels One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions have currently been optioned for movies. Her book Arranged Marriage has been made into a play and performed in the U.S. and (upcoming, May) in Canada. River of Light, an opera about an Indian woman in a bi-cultural marriage, for which she wrote the libretto, has been performed in Texas and California.

She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy. She has two sons, Anand and Abhay (whose names she has used in her children’s novels).

Chitra loves to connect with readers on her Facebook author page, www.facebook.com/chitradivakaruni, and on Twitter, @cdivakaruni.
For more information about her books, please visit http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/, where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

Reviews

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

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I live stories where authors collaborate without any planning or discussion. Written during the Lockdown, it was a different take on loneliness. And went towards a surprise end.

[Monika Satote ( Monikareads_ on Instagram ) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The COVID pandemic has impacted all of our lives in many ways. Needless to say, the negative impact is evident. The lives are lost. The jobs are gone. The businesses collapsed, and so did some dreams. The mental health of the people is declining, and so many other things. On the positive side, we have been seeing people following passions, running small businesses to build their business empire someday, some people got viral on the internet, and their lives are not the same anymore. The most important thing, I feel, is people got time for themselves, to reflect on their past, their mistakes, their present, their needs, their thoughts and that changed many things. Unfortunately, not everyone was lucky to be in that position. The overall impact of Covid is significant.

Last year, around this time, Harpercollins started a crowdsourced novel. The first chapter is written by Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee and all the other chapters are written by other people who are either published authors or aspiring ones. Such a cool idea.

So, this book is about Manorama who lives in Mumbai with her husband Vinod and two kids. One morning, she wakes up only to find out her husband, kids, and maid vanished from the house. She looks outside the window, the city feels extremely silent, the same city that never sleeps. She tries calling her mother and some close people but gets no response. After some time, a stranger calls her. Through this call, they realise that both of them are the last ones and all other people have disappeared? What would have happened to them? Why are these people the last ones?

The idea of crowdsourced novels is super cool, and honestly, this felt like one story. Nowhere I could find a hint that each story is written by a different author except that it was mentioned in each story, lol. My curiosity and excitement were at their peak in the first half. I really appreciate the first few chapters. Chitra gave this book a great start that somehow made amazing initial chapters. Another thing I must mention is no matter what, no writer let the Manorama go out of her character. It felt natural, the things were flowing.
But as I decided to read ahead, I suddenly felt like reading some random stuff. When I say random, it is not about the new characters or weird stuff. The characters were still there, but the twists and turns were not impressive. I wanted to like this book so I was trying to understand the hidden messages, symbolism through the story but I was disappointed. As a story, it is okay. But it could have been better in the last chapters. It wasn’t worth my curiosity. I like the message but not this book as a book. I don't know how to explain, so that's all from me :)

[Siddhant Agarwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of the book takes an interesting turn with each chapter. The idea of a crowdsourced novel attracted me the most to the story and I wanted to see how this chain of storytelling happens. The first thing I would like to mention is the seamless connectivity and continuity, despite each chapter being written by a separate person. The story from the beginning till the end does not lag and the plot makes sense in the manner it goes on. The language is comprehensible, and a comfortable read, with no over the top words or phrases.

Secondly, while one story came out in the end, each of the author left their own mark in the chapter they wrote. Kanchana’s chapter has some elements that are almost her signature, while Sandeepa’s chapter had an element of food, which is her forte. Nikita’s chapter was an apt closing, and like her stories, it had a pleasant and a soothing element to it. The story that Chitra starts could have gone in any direction, but after reading it, it feels that this was truly the natural flow of the plot.

Each writer preserved the essence of the base character of Manorama, and yet added their own flavor to her which helped develop a person that exhibited a myriad of shades of love, anger, and envy. Other characters are well crafted and seamlessly become a part of the narrative once introduced.

Overall, this idea of a crowdsourced novel by HarperCollins India is something I would love to see again, and I am glad I picked up this story. This was truly a story that shows us that even though we are sitting apart, the emotions running through us are similar.

[Shreya Tulsyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last ones is a unique crowd sourced novel in which every chapter is written by a different writer. But the most astonishing part is that each chapter is seamlessly blended together. It's impossible to guess that the book is not written by a single author.


The first chapter is written by @divakarunichitra. Manorama wakes up alone at her home to find her entire family missing. When she leaves the house to search for them she is shocked to find no one in the town. What happens next?? Read this really short thriller to find out.

Infact it's one of those books that leaves you wanting for more. At a crisp 57 pages, if you're one of those who wants to read books but gets overwhelmed by big long books, pick this one up and finish it in a single session.


In the year 2020 when due to lockdown every industry was facing a slump a few writers such as @divakarunichitra @singh_nikita, @bingmom_cookbook, @kanchanabanerjee,sumira Khan ,@write_the_world_pink, neha Gupta, @missgole , @ariensnig , @hsriniv12 , @priyadarshika.ingle came together a published this one of a kind crowd sourced novel.

Highly recommended this one to take you out of your reading slump .

Publisher - @harpercollinsin
Price - free on Kindle

[Aparna Prabhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world came to a slowdown during the pandemic. Silence engulfed the surroundings. Silence which was once peaceful slowly became eerie in the course of time.

Manorama thought it would be a normal day where she would drop her kids to school and would see off her husband for work followed by correcting a stack of mathematics papers after she returned home from work. When she called her maid for her morning tea, Manorama received no reply. This was followed by a slew of strange events that made her sweat profusely. Meanwhile her sinful past looms large over her head. One by one people from her past interface whose presence makes her uncomfortable.

The story goes back and forth mainly in conversations with brief descriptions of the outside world. It is rooted in Dante’s Inferno where a person has to perform seven acts of mercy to cleanse themselves from seven deadly sins known to mankind. The chronology of events create a suspense that is enough to hold your attention.

Prominent authors like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Kanchana Banerjee, Nikita Singh and others weave a story that is rife with human emotions and the power of forgiveness.

[Srijita Majumdar · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.
The initiative of bringing forth some of the most incredible Indian female writers for a collaborative piece is amazing. However, the evergreen adage of 'Too many cooks' works for this initiative and the result is very underwhelming!
The mysterious build-up, the tension in the story was well-developed, the ending was well-wrapped but being a grammar Nazi myself, I couldn't get over the grammatical errors in some of the chapters, I mean how ridiculous! Also, there was a little mix-up about the places and the positions where the characters were residing in some writer's chapter vs the positions in the next writer's chapter, All of which goes to show that the editing team did not do their job very well.. The themes of the seven cardinal sins were well-captured but the writer to writer transitions were not very smooth.

All-in-all, a very prosaic and 'Meh' read.

[Anirban · Rating 4 out of 5]

📖
Manorama, a woman in her mid thirties, wakes up in a world without any other living person. While trying to understand the situation, she comes in contact with an oddly familiar teenage boy who might be the only other living soul. Gradually they unravel many secrets about their lives while realising the truth about the strange reality.
📝
The plot was unpredictable till the end, talking about concepts such as the 'seven sins known to man' and atonement. It was well paced and grabbed the attention from the word go - a necessity for shorter books. The beauty of the book was that though each chapter was written by a different author, they were synced so well that there was hardly any noticeable difference in the style of writing.

Overall, a good quick read that can be finished in one session.

[Mayolla nazareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief yet intriguing

Despite every chapter being written by a different author, there is a continuity in the language and the style of writing, the story is gripping, surely a good read to complete within one sitting.

[Samarpita Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad

It started well and picked pace specially in Kanchana's chapter where it grabbed my attention completely and then went down.

[Kavita Jhala]

A witty twist

Lockdown, pandemic, heaven, sins, guilt....so much so beautifully thrown in ! Really loved it! I recommend you all to read it

[Purnima · Rating 2 out of 5]

Absurd

I was not expecting this sort of novel from Chitra Banerjee. The story had too many twists for a short novel.

[Jainand Gurjar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good concept, but not much impacting.

[Viharsh Jain · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story was very absurd and had way too many twists for a short story