reverb books
reverb: getting writers read

The Group,
by Ravinder Chahal

Published May 2005

ISBN 1 905315 01 5 • £7.99


Read the first chapter
Buy this title from Amazon

“How far can you really take it? I mean, could you lie to someone, get them hooked? Get them believing in something because they want to, for whatever reasons they have of their own, and then come clean? Would they listen to you then or would they just want to keep believing the lie that they’ve made their own?”

The Group is a book that talks to people who are successful in an economy that they do not believe in. Aimed at those for whom it is fashionable to be knowing, it tells the story of Khaled, an arch-cynic for whom everyone is a fake or a loser. The only problem is Khaled has done very little himself that he can be proud of and is beginning to bore himself.

Faced with the prospect of drifting through life in obscurity he dreams up a satirical scam to reveal how easily people can be manipulated, and how thin their dreams and aspirations are. But rather than escape The Group, his scam only serves to show how hollow he has become, and how he needs to completely recalibrate his own life.

The Group is a dark and wickedly funny book about people who tell lies and people who believe them.

Buy this title from Amazon

Printable version