Acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie’s latest book, Knife, is mostly a harrowing autobiographical account of his attempted assassination and subsequent recovery, but he also uses it to remind readers that he was once married to one of the most beautiful women in the world. Here are five times in Knife where Salman Rushdie reminds the reader that he was married to Padma Lakshmi in all capital letters in a much larger font than the rest of the book.
1. The jacket of the book, where the phrase YES I WAS MARRIED TO HER (PADMA) takes up the entire back cover
While most books use their back covers to summarize what you’ll find inside and include words of praise from readers, Rushdie chose to use most of the back cover of Knife to announce that he was indeed married to Padma Lakshmi. While this may have confused a few prospective buyers, Rushdie is an experienced writer, so he must have determined that this information would be more important to readers than a brief description of what the book is about.
2. The part where Rushdie interrupts the first chapter, Knife, with the URL for a Google search of “Padma Lakshmi husband”
As the author sets the stage for his nearly fatal 2022 stabbing in the book’s first chapter, he writes, https://www.google.com/search?q=padma+lakshmi+husband&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS992US992&oq=Padma+Lakshmi+hus&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqEQgAEEUYOxhDGLEDGIAEGIoFMhEIABBFGDsYQxixAxiABBiKBTIGCAEQRRg5MgcIAhAAGIAEMgcIAxAAGIAEMgcIBBAAGIAEMgcIBRAAGIAEMgcIBhAAGIAEMgcIBxAAGIAEMg0ICBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFqAIAsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8, a “passage” that is typed in font so large that it spans two of the book’s pages. While the large jumble of text definitely interrupts his buildup to the harrowing event at the book’s core, Rushdie seems to have felt that chapter one would be as good a time as any to include the URL that, if typed into a Google search bar, returns the result “Salman Rushdie” despite the fact the couple has been divorced for over a decade.
3. The part where he claims that, while laying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, he was surrounded by people who tried to help him by reminding him he was once married to Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef
This horrific passage reads,
I remember laying on the floor watching the pool of my blood spreading outward from my body. “PADMA! PADMA LAKSHMI! YOU MARRIED HER!” I could hear multiple urgent voices calling from the cloudy chaos surrounding me. “C’MON, MAN! YOU CAN’T DIE! YOU WERE MARRIED TO THE BABE FROM TOP CHEF!” To this day, I still do not know who it was who was yelling this to me. All I do know is that whoever they were, they were 100% correct.
4. The part where there are five blank pages, the words PADMA LAKSHMI AND I FRENCHED A LOT WHILE WE WERE MARRIED, and then another five blank pages
Most books don’t include a lot of blank pages, but in an apparent effort to add even more emphasis to these words than he already had by writing them in all capital letters in a huge font size, Salman Rushdie included ten of them in Knife. The technique is definitely effective; few readers will come away from reading the book without knowing that Salman and Padma frenched a lot when they were married.
5. The part in chapter four, Rehab, where he claims ALL I HAD TO DO TO GET BETTER WAS LOOK AT A PHOTO OF FROM MY WEDDING (WHERE I MARRIED PADMA LAKSHMI) and then the chapter ends
Rushdie suffered multiple stab wounds to the abdomen, neck, and eye, so one would expect that his recovery would occupy a significant portion of the book he wrote about the stabbing, but it does not. In the chapter about his rehabilitation, he simply claims in a 64-point, all-caps font that all he had to do to get better was look at a photo from his wedding to Padma Lakshmi, with no additional medical treatment necessary. Knife is as inspiring as it is harrowing; an intimate story of a man’s near-death experience, peppered with very large, very blunt reminders that the man was once married to a gorgeous model.
