Supriya Dravid’s debut reprises the poshness of l’art pour l’art. Built word by word, trope by clever trope, enfrilled by luscious prose, A Cool, Dark Place is an artist’s unabashed monument to pure pleasures. And that, in the recent times of cautious and non-hedonistic writing, is itself cause for celebration. It is neither to be shelved as a confessional piece nor as a conscientious political allegory, reflecting contemporaneity or the seamy underbelly of life as it were. Supriya Dravid, with the disarming elan of a young writer, crafts a world out of the choicest artifacts, assembles this and that, leaving a trail of family lores, grief and memory. The title itself, for those of us stuck on Sylvia Plath, recalls the dark basement where the master-crafter of death lay dying for days.