This is the sort of novel that gathers intelligence and power through repetition, incantation, and time. As the pages build . . . these characters grow into two of the most memorable creations in Indian fiction. These scenes have an aching power that Taseer amplifies with his exquisite, booming prose . . . as if Taseer has taken Naipaul and titrated him with Proust . . . He has written the best Indian novel of the last decade.
Karan Mahajan
Los Angeles Review of Books
An ambitious state-of-the-nation novel about the role of history in a contested present . . . Taseer . . . sensitively undercuts the seductions of nostalgia.
Phil Baker
Sunday Times
The Ways Things Were shows [Taseer] to be both an accomplished novelist and commentator. In delving beneath the surface, he has vividly exposed the quarrels and quandaries of an India undergoing rapid historical and social change.
Will Nicoll
Spectator
A formidable mix of the personal and the political . . . Taseer's wide and analytical perspective has something in common with contemporaries Amit Chaudhuri and Neel Mukherjee, but his style - at once highly intellectual and deeply poetic - is unique . . . The Way Things Were is a substantive contribution to new writing from the subcontinent.
Amanda Hopkinson
Independent
Intensely engrossing . . . What [Taseer] has done with great intelligence and elegance is to deliver a novel of ideas in the guise of a very human story.
Michael Prodger
Financial Times