When Ram’s cousin Jacob dies in a car crash, he and his friend Gummo are intent on carrying out Jacob’s legacy. Especially if it means inciting riots, breaking into museums and setting trees on fire. On the big night when Ram and Gummo are ready for all the chaos, things start to go wrong. But Ram and Gummo are more determined than ever. They will do what they set out to do; they will honour Jacob’s memory.
Bastard Virtues is a novel that’s chaotic and wild, but in all the right ways. The book starts in the middle of Ram and Gummo trying to incite their riot, and quickly escalates from there onwards. As the novel continues, things swiftly begin to spiral. When things don’t go according to plan, Ram and Gummo are impulsive and brash; often leading them to bad, drug-induced decisions that put them at risk. But that is half the fun of Bastard Virtues. There’s a really enjoyable unpredictability about the book that sets it apart.
Despite its chaotic and quirky nature, the book also has a really sad undertone as it explores Ram attempting to come to terms with the death of his cousin. The more chaotic and wild Gummo and Ram’s actions, the less Ram seems able to understand his great loss. However, this is where the book lets its readers down. Despite having a really wonderful concept; trying to incorporate this story of grief and grapple with loss into a fast-paced descent into chaos, the story fell short. Ram’s grapple with his grief is presented as half-hearted at best. The book provides some of Ram’s memories with Jacob, some things that tells us why these chaotic action seem necessary to Ram. Aside from that, we never really get to know Jacob, so the grief that Ram feels throughout the entire book is a little lost on us. At the same time, Ram himself is a character that’s out of reach. Other than this overwhelming grief that he’s dealing with, there is very little that we find out about Ram. As he’s the protagonist of the book, this makes it incredibly difficult for us to actually identify with his struggles.
Perhaps the most fleshed-out character in the entire novel was Betty, a stranger who joins Gummo and Ram during the beginning of their night of chaos. However, her character is treated cruelly and unjustly. She divulges her backstory of an abusive boyfriend to Gummo and Ram, out of an enraged and heartbroken desire to get revenge. This is followed by a violent scene where Gummo does beat up the abusive boyfriend, while Ram holds a screaming and crying Betty off. So while the novel encourages Ram’s justifiable grief about his cousin and how he wants to come to terms with it by causing general chaos, Betty is not given the same opportunity to come to terms with her own grief and heartbreak. This becomes even more problematic when the “romance” between Ram and Betty becomes prominent. Not only does it feel completely out of place and rushed, but there seems no reality or genuineness to their attraction for each other. At the end of the day, it felt tacked on and made Betty’s storyline even more cumbersome and cruel.
Despite its problems, Bastard Virtues is a book that I overall enjoyed reading. It was a fun and quick-paced novel. My favourite part was the ending, which perfectly tied everything in the book together. It perfectly coalesced the chaotic and wild side of the book with Ram’s grief.
