The world of the coastal town of Ayemenem is squalid and fetid, suggested by the heavy stink from the Meenachal that hangs over the town. Its residents live blighted lives of frustration and emptiness. In a narrative driven by the oppressive weight of Big Things such as hate, discrimination, violence, death, greed, and history, the narrative nevertheless pauses the drama at regular moments to detail, with poetic lyricism, evidence of small, fragile beauty in and around the lives of the Ipe family that are often ignored or missed.

Thus, even as the runaway children head down to river to their doom, Ammu steals out with her lover, or the police squad approaches the History House to arrest Velutha, the narrator pauses to take note of the jangly scurry of insects, the fragile scattering of butterflies, the careless touches of color in the trees from squawking birds, or the slimy feel of the river weeds. In short, the narrator insists on an unapologetic and unironic delight in the shapes, colors, and textures of the random collision of small things all around the family’s emerging tragedy. The narrator likewise refuses to ignore what might seem to be negative elements, the ugliness, all around the characters: the stench of feces from the river, the slant and lean of the neglected house, the crazy run of cockroaches in the Ipe kitchen, the vivid white lines of Ammu’s stretch marks, the green-rotting fish floating in the river, the grey shade of Estha’s vomit, or the golden stream of urine when the family visits the theater restroom.