Ananda Mukherjee's first novel is titled 'A House in the Old Style'. It deals with Youngest Granduncle, octogenarian and master storyteller. He is the cherished, much-respected eldest member of his deceased brother's family, and lives with his aged nephews, their sons, wives and children in an old colonial mansion in Allahabad.

The colourful stories of his youth, his brush with the freedom struggle and his many years in Fiji, his marriage to a local woman recounted with great flourish and comic timing, are a huge hit with the children of the house. But Swapan, his corporate son born from a late, second marriage, and wary of his father's dubious past, is home for the Durga Puja festivities and feels duty-bound to take his father away with him, far from the comfort of his extended family and the courtesies of a traditional Prabashi household, to the tightly nuclear confines of his own.

A House in the Old Style is an elegant and understated account of an anachronistic household and its old world values. The author Ananda Mukherjee was born in Lucknow in 1934. He went to school, college and university in Allahabad. Thereafter he drew his sustenance from advertising in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.