This book is a depressing allegory for our time, although that doesn’t really become apparent until one is about 200 pages in. Published in 2017, one wonders how Rushdie managed to distill the essence of the times we live in and reproduce it so quickly in the form of a novel. The writing is dense and packed with allusions, so much so that the arc of the story is difficult to follow at first. I bring it down to four stars because several of my fellow reading group friends confessed they just couldn’t get through it.