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The God of Small Things opens with Rahel returning to Ayemenem in India, her childhood home 23 years after some terrible events took place. Gradually the story of the events themselves and the history that led to them unfolds. It is the story of an increasingly dysfunctional family whose members all broke the rules in various ways and crossed into forbidden territory. We learn early on in the books that Sophie Mol - the cousin of Rahel and her twin brother, Estha - had died just two weeks into a visit from England. Sophie’s mother, Margaret had been married to the twins’ uncle, Chako. After Margaret’s second husband had been killed in an accident, Chako had invited them out to Ayemenem for Christmas. On the day Sophie Mol arrived, the twins’ world began to unravel. At a visit to the cinema before collecting Margaret and Sophie from the airport, Estha is assaulted by a paedophile refreshment vendor. He is overcome with feelings of guilt and shame. Rahel says some careless words to her mother, Ammu, who tells her that careless words make one love the speaker of them a little less. This idea horrifies the twins who are especially devoted to their mother following her divorce from their alcoholic father.
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