SOURCE: A review of The Moor's Last Sigh, in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 277, No. 2, February, 1996, p. 114.

Below, Adams presents a positive review of The Moor's Last Sigh.

Mr. Rushdie's new novel is so intricate, so multi-faceted, and so fast-moving that it keeps the reader dizzily enthralled from beginning to end. It may also add a Hindu curse to the Islamic price on the author's head, for beneath the surface glitter of the tale lies a protest against the rise of chauvinistic Hindu fundamentalism and the dissolution of a once tolerant and flexible culture. The Moor of the title, who has nothing to do with Othello, is Moraes Zogoiby, the story's narrator. He is the last male survivor of two European families that flourished for centuries in the spice trade of the Malabar Coast. The Portuguese Da Gamas claim illegitimate descent from the great Vasco—improbably. The Jewish Zogoibys...