Raw, tender, and darkly comic, The Abyss is widely considered a masterpiece from Jeyamohan, a writer whose body of work has shaped modern Tamil literature.Pothivelu Pandaram is known as a successful, God-fearing man about town: he has a loyal wife, three daughters, and money to pay for their dowries. However, it’s an open secret that his success is fueled by a trade that is as profitable as it is cruel: he owns—and breeds—a group of physically deformed beg...

Pothivelu Pandaram is known as a successful and God-fearing man about town–he has a loyal wife, three daughters, and ample money to pay for their dowries. However, it is an open secret that his success is fueled by a tawdry yet deeply profitable trade–for he owns a group of physically deformed beggars and places them outside various temples to make money for him. The beggars are mere "items" to Pandaram, hardly human, to be bought and sold like cattle. But when the novel descends right int...