The ground shifts repeatedly beneath the reader’s feet during the
course of Salman Rushdie’s sixth novel, a riff on the Orpheus and
get their first clues early on that the universe Rushdie is creating
wrote “Heartbreak Hotel”; Carly Simon and Guinevere Garfunkel sang
“Bridge over Troubled Water”; and Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae
starred in “South Pacific.” And as the novel progresses, Rushdie adds
unmistakable elements of science fiction to his already patented
magical realism, with occasionally uneven results.

Rushdie’s cunning musician is Ormus Cama, the Bombay-born founder of
the most popular group in the world. Ormus’s Eurydice (and lead singer)
musical talent, is a decidedly twisted family life: Ormus’s twin
brother died at birth and communicates to him from “the other side”;
these two believe they were made for each other.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet begins with a terrible earthquake in 1989
as well. Rushdie’s canvas is huge, stretching from India to London to
New York and beyond–and there’s plenty of room for him to punctuate
this epic tale with pointed commentary on his own situation:
Muslim-born Rai, for example, remarks that “my parents gave me the gift
they held dear…. You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice,
but even if so, that’s a cup from which I’d happily drink again.”
continuum, and it’s epic length, The Ground Beneath Her Feet may be the
most optimistic, accessible novel Rushdie has yet written.

My favorite section of the novel is when Vina goes to Manhattan and
meets every freak in show business at what falls just short of a sex
club while hanging with her manager. Some of the names and occupations
of the people she meets will blow your mind!

Buy it and take your time reading it. I suggest cherishing this novel
like an expensive box of chocolate because writing this phenomenal
doesn’t come alone every day.

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