Publishers Weekly
★ 04/17/2023
James (The Tusk That Did the Damage) returns with a spectacular tale of creativity and colonialism drawing on the “Tippoo’s Tiger” automaton displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 1794 Mysore, India, teenager Abbas carves intricate mechanical toys at his father’s furniture shop. After Mysore’s ruler, Tipu Sultan, learns of Abbas’s talents, he orders Abbas to help French inventor and clockmaker Lucien du Leze craft Mysore’s first automaton. Their “fantastical curiosity,” as Tipu calls the life-size wooden tiger capable of sound and movement, pleases the court. While under du Leze’s tutelage, Abbas meets Jehanne Martine, the biracial daughter of Tipu’s French armorer. Du Leze, Jehanne, and her father sail to France in 1799, and Abbas stays behind to tend his ailing father. His hopes to follow them are dashed by Britain’s bloody conquest of Mysore, and by the time he arrives in Rouen in 1805 to take up the apprenticeship he’s been promised, du Leze is dead. He reunites with Jehanne, who tells him the British have shipped the mechanical tiger to England with other looted artifacts. Abbas proposes an audacious plan to reclaim the object, believing its public display could make them rich and give them the chance to make their mark on history. There’s an unceasing exuberance to the prose, and James’s descriptions are endlessly witty (du Leze’s outfit for the tiger’s unveiling, an Afghani tunic and a shawl from Kashmir, is “an atlas of textiles”). Rarely is a novel so dense with painful themes also such fun. At once swashbuckling and searing, this is a marvelous achievement. (June)
From the Publisher
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Bustle, Elle, Publishers Weekly
“Captivating . . . James is a master miniaturist who can create the illusion of a saga in a chapter. And she’s not afraid to radically reset the novel’s place and tone. Her pages feel as full as a 19th-century bildungsroman, with collapsing kingdoms, sailing ships and elaborate schemes . . . And her prose is lush with the sights, sounds and smells of India, France and England, and always laced with Dickensian wit.” —The Washington Post
“Addictively absorbing.” —The New York Times Book Review
"Loot is lovingly drawn and compulsively readable, with all the pleasures and detail of stellar historical fiction.” —Vulture
“Spanning 50 years and two continents, this rich, compelling novel offers an unflinching look at the violence of imperialism.” —People Magazine
“James’s ravishing prose and trademark blend of lyricism and suspense animate this ingenious caper meets politically acute coming-of-age story.” —Oprah Daily
"Loot held me spellbound from the first page. This is an expertly-plotted, deeply affecting novel about war, displacement, emigration, and an elusive mechanical tiger.” —Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet
"Spectacular . . . There’s an unceasing exuberance to the prose, and James’s descriptions are endlessly witty . . . Rarely is a novel so dense with painful themes also such fun. At once swashbuckling and searing, this is a marvelous achievement." —Publishers Weekly [starred review]
“Steeped in the rich history of three nations and infused with a young man’s unshakable desire to do something grand, Loot is transportive storytelling at its best . . . James’ plot is brilliant and unique, her creative liberties mixing well with the historical realities of colonialism and migration. Her supporting characters are woven with the same care and detail as her protagonist. All of this combines for a stimulating and informative novel, a must-read for adventurers, dreamers and lovers of history.” —BookPage [starred review]
“A rich, sprawling, picaresque historical novel . . . James weaves a lustrous tale of intrigue and survival, cunning and romance.” —Booklist [starred review]
"Lively and symbolically rich . . . A smart, sharp tale, as well crafted as the object at its center . . . [James’s] prose is fleet and rich in ironic humor . . . Loot, as the title hints, is an engaging reminder that today’s museum pieces are often functions of forgotten exploitation and theft." —Kirkus Reviews [starred review]
"I read Loot in a single sitting; it is a wild, dazzling eighteenth-century romp across continents with profound things to say about invention and self-reinvention, class and fate, and the deeply human hunger to create family as both bulwark against loneliness and constant source of light and warmth.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies
"Loot is a feast—a hugely fun novel with a delicious plot that offers delights and profundities in equal measure. Each chapter of this sprint across the world serves stunning truths about circumstance and ambition, love and sacrifice, and the fickleness of victory. I devoured this book, and remain in awe of what Tania James has created." —Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
"A novel of wonder and terror and beauty — I was completely captivated by it.” —Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire
"Loot is the most transporting and absorbing novel I've read in ages—a rich tapestry of an epic, thrilling at every turn. This isn't just brilliant writing: It's storytelling of the highest order." —Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers
“A luminous novel of history that explores the far reaches of empire and of human desire, of love, greed, betrayal, and possible redemption. In this genuine page-turner, Tania James does the seemingly impossible: not only does she breathe life into charismatic characters, she repeats the feat with automatons, for crying out loud. Tipu’s Tiger might be a stolen artifact in a British museum, but you can hear its roar in these pages. Loot is a historical story that bristles with contemporary urgency.” —Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman
July 2023 - AudioFile
Shawn K. Jain narrates Tania James's fascinating tale of craftsmanship and the tribulations caused by political unrest. In Mysore, India, 1797, Abbas is a 17-year-old woodcarver who is commanded by the sultan to apprentice with Lucien Du Leze, a famous French clockmaker, for the purpose of making a tiger automaton. When Mysore falls in 1799, the sultan is killed, Abbas escapes to France, and the tiger vanishes. Abbas and Du Leze's daughter plot to find it. Jain's delivery reflects youthful, high-strung Abbas's gusto, but his tone rarely changes. While James's writing is bright and witty, with many subtle jabs at authority, there is little subtlety in Jain's characterizations. Nonetheless, his even narration coupled with James's multifaceted plot and well-developed characters makes this worthwhile listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
AudioFile - JULY 2023
Shawn K. Jain narrates Tania James's fascinating tale of craftsmanship and the tribulations caused by political unrest. In Mysore, India, 1797, Abbas is a 17-year-old woodcarver who is commanded by the sultan to apprentice with Lucien Du Leze, a famous French clockmaker, for the purpose of making a tiger automaton. When Mysore falls in 1799, the sultan is killed, Abbas escapes to France, and the tiger vanishes. Abbas and Du Leze's daughter plot to find it. Jain's delivery reflects youthful, high-strung Abbas's gusto, but his tone rarely changes. While James's writing is bright and witty, with many subtle jabs at authority, there is little subtlety in Jain's characterizations. Nonetheless, his even narration coupled with James's multifaceted plot and well-developed characters makes this worthwhile listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-05-09
An expert Indian woodworker gets a front-row seat to 18th- and 19th-century imperialism.
Abbas, the hero of James’ lively and symbolically rich third novel, is a poor 17-year-old artisan in Mysore in 1794 when he’s recruited by Tipu Sultan, the local ruler, to apprentice with Lucien Du Leze, a French clockmaker. Together they are charged with making an automaton of a tiger attacking a British soldier. The experience hones his carving skills, but just as importantly it introduces him to an intercontinental power play: Tipu, aka the Tiger of Mysore, is attempting to fend off an incursion by the British East India Company by appealing for French support by any means necessary, including the automaton. But with France roiled in the aftermath of its own revolution, Mysore falls in 1799, prompting Abbas to escape to France, where he connects with Lucien’s daughter, Jehanne. Together, they plot to recover the automaton, which is in the hands of Lady Selwyn, widow of a British soldier who served in India. From Abbas’ first meeting with Lucien to his and Jehanne’s negotiations with Selwyn, James trains her descriptions on the ways Indians are displaced and diminished by imperialists and the ways they have to contort themselves to adjust to society. (Selwyn’s high-mannered butler, an Indian man named Rum, exemplifies the psychic costs of force-feeding oneself another culture’s protocols.) But though the intensity of James’ critique is clear, her prose is fleet and rich in ironic humor. “I am here because you were there,” Rum thinks, encapsulating the perverse logic and cruelty of his circumstance. The automaton of the novel actually exists, James explains in a note; her novel, as the title hints, is an engaging reminder that today’s museum pieces are often functions of forgotten exploitation and theft.
A smart, sharp tale, as well crafted as the object at its center.
