"How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?" asks James Salter in Light Years, a question forming the epigraph to Mukherjee's deeply affecting and ambitious second novel set in Kolkata mainly between 1966-1970, turbulent times. Despite their claustrophobic geographical proximity, huge emotional distance lies between its characters – including the dysfunctional Ghosh family, who must learn how the lives of others are inextricably entangled with their own.

The intricate narrative thrives on juxtaposing seemingly random scenes and gradually revealing the connections. The engrossing novel opens as the sun "burns away any lingering grain of hope" that monsoons will end the drought. A man so poor that he cannot feed his starving family seeks help from the landlord to whom he is indebted but, deaf to the pain and plight of others, his landlord shuns him, with catastrophic consequences.

In pared-down, poetic style Mukherjee depicts not only the harsh physical terrain, how the "earth around him is beginning to fissure and crack", but also the fractures in a fragmenting family and society. The sprawling plot switches to the privileged Ghosh family who gained their wealth through a paper production business; indeed, imagery of paper abounds, from the pain of a paper cut to the note grandson Supratik leaves before disappearing, explaining that he is exhausted with "taking and grabbing and using" and wants to "push back against the life given me and make my own". Hoping to change himself and the world, he is drawn to extreme political activism.

In startling imagery that sears itself into the mind, The Lives of Others excellently exposes the gulf between rich and poor, young and old, tradition and modernity, us and them, showing how acts of empathy are urgently needed to bridge the divides.