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Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty‑Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie - review  Salman Rushdie’s name on the cover of a book comes with baggage. Because of the history of the author’s previous works, there’s the inevitable desire to compare with the old books. Midnight’s Children especially weighs upon all of the author’s work because of the stature of that novel. However, it’s not just comparison but expectation. The reader expects the protagonist to be from the subcontinent and the novel to be peppered with historical and contemporary references. There is the expectation that the novel will reference and compare Eastern and Western histories. The historical fiction is expected to be accompanied by magical realism. These expectations can also weigh in on the evaluation of Rushdie’s new novel. And, if the reader is expecting to find all those things, they won’t be disappointed. Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty‑Eight Nights is an unwieldy name which references ...