This was much better that other novels by Indian English authors I have listened to on Audible. The accent is not accurate for South India, but it is quite acceptable. One thing I liked about the narrator was that he had a clear Indian accent, and had correct pronunciations for vernacular words. What do you think the narrator could have done better? The teenaged character does verbalize opinions about a philosophical perspective on life, we get it as hearsay from his friends and acquaintances - but this is just the sort of stuff about which extremely intelligent adolescents may obsess, However, the writer does not hit us over the head with any philosophical lecturing. The philosophical basis is presumably existentialist.

The characters and the structure of the storytelling were enjoyable. What made the experience of listening to The Illicit Happiness of Other People the most enjoyable? The Illicit Happiness of Other People is a smart, wry, and poignant novel - teases you with its mystery, philosophy, and unlikely love story. Haughty and beautiful, she has her own secrets. Meanwhile, younger son Thoma, missing his brother, falls head over heels for the much older girl who befriended them both.

Three years later, Ousep receives a package that sends him searching for the answer, hounding his son’s former friends, attending a cartoonists’ meeting, and even accosting a famous neurosurgeon. One day, their seemingly happy seventeen-year-old son Unni - an obsessed comic-book artist - falls from the balcony, leaving them to wonder whether it was an accident. His wife Mariamma stretches their money, raises their two boys, and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasizes about Ousep dying.

Ousep Chacko, journalist and failed novelist, prides himself on being 'the last of the real men.' This includes waking neighbors upon returning late from the pub. A quirky and darkly comic take on domestic life in southern India.

The illicit happiness of other people