Man on Fire

In his second novel, Kelman (Pigeon English) focuses on the spiritual crisis of an Englishman who travels to the village of Navi Mumbai, in India, in order to kick-start his sputtering life. Desperately seeking meaning, John Lock decides to leave his ailing wife behind for a short time to go to India and join acclaimed pioneer of extreme sports Bibhuti Nayak, who is attempting to end his career with a final world record—breaking 50 baseball bats over his body. Interwoven flashbacks reveal that Bibhuti already endured a record 43 kicks to his unprotected groin in 1998 and claimed another record in 1999 for 1,448 sit-ups in one hour, but when John sees three slabs of concrete broken over Bibhuti’s groin in a television performance, it incites his “sense of the magnificent,” leaving him with pure desire: “I wanted what he had. He shimmered and crackled and the world bent to his will.” Lock weathers a deluge of surprising revelations and eventually must contend with his own spiritual beliefs. The kinship between these two different men is endearing, and Kelman’s novel is a joyful offering. (Feb.)