The Sentinel House, Allen Mendonca's posthumous novel, is an earnestly catty account of the newspaper business
The Sentinel House, Allen Mendonca's posthumous novel, is an earnestly catty account of the newspaper business
Anyone who knew Allen Mendonca also knew he enjoyed his journalism. Which is why they won't be surprised at the earnestness and energy in The Sentinel House, his novel about the newspaper business. Allen goes about challenging readers, fellow journalists particularly, to identify real-life media people hiding behind his fictional characters. He is a satirist one moment, and a practitioner of pulp fiction the next, but there isn't a moment he isn't having a go at the media world. 
The Sentinel House narrates the saga of Harivanshrai aka Harry, a media baron driven as much by his hormones as by the opportunities afforded by the new Indian economy. In a hurry to expand his empire, he transforms his newspaper from institution to product, obscures the once-inviolable line between editorial and marketing, and elevates advertiser over reader.
Many will read this as a dramatised chronicle of what Allen saw in the newsrooms over the past two decades. If journalists sit around at bars and coffee shops with a copy of The Sentinel House, smirking, taunting, hooting, or even getting into brawls, you know why.
And unexpectedly, running through all the masala and the action is Allen's faith in Hindu karma and Christian compassion. When Harry's crippled son Sid finally finds love and fulfilment, and wealth and power, Allen suggests it is all because of the character's essential goodness.
But for all that, Allen's book is vulnerable, and can be ripped apart easily by any critical book lover. Its sex scenes are inspired by Harold Robbins. Its characters are predictable in what they do when faced with a crisis.
(The media czar sleeps around, his wife parties and hits the bottle, and their son seeks meaning in art).
One doesn't know if Allen would have liked to revise it before sending it out to the press, but The Sentinel House, even in its present form, can deliver a satisfyingly nasty high.
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