A Book Review I Didn’t Expect

My Humble Thanks To Des Tellis

A couple of days ago, I received an interesting email from Des Tellis, who lives in Christie Downs in South Australia. He had tried contacting me earlier but had had no success until he got my contact details from a relative. Des’s email was warm and supportive of my first novel, Vegemite Vindaloo', published by Penguin – and he kindly attached a newsletter review that he had written of the book. This is an excerpt ….

``David McMahon tells a story that has a wonderfully authentic ring. With a touch of James A. Michener, tracking the confluence of different migrant peoples in many epic novels, McMahon takes us along a mini confluence of disparate people. A very true-to-life novel, it doesn’t shy away from the prejudices we all knew in India, and even practised, and it captures the sentiments and insecurities of a migrant community through all the ups and downs of the transition process.

And, if I have read Book Notes on the Internet correctly, `Vegemite Vindaloo’ has been on several bestseller lists and was No.3 on the Calcutta Statesman’s best seller list in November last year, just behind Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai and John Grisham, at No.1 and 2, and ahead of Frederick Forsyth and Jeffrey Archer at No. 4 and 5. How is that for a debut novel!

It has humour, poignant moments and uplifting sequences where decency and inherent goodness win through. It is the type of book I have waited half a lifetime to read.’’