Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

by Katherine Boo

It seemed to him that in Annawadi, fortunes derived not just from what people did, or how well they did it, but from the accidents and catastrophes they dodged. A decent life was the train that hadn’t hit you, the slumlord you hadn’t offended, the malaria you hadn’t caught.

curious formality of people who shared the understanding that much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.

If the house is crooked and crumbling, and the land on which it sits uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?