The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

November 24, 2023

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

Remy Wadia has traveled back to India, the country he left a decade earlier, to adopt a baby. He plans to meet the baby's mother, visit his estranged mother briefly, and then return home to the United States. But things take a sudden turn when he learns among other things that his mother is seriously ill and in the hospital.

I love Umrigar's fiction. She writes about universal topics from a new angle (not necessarily an Indian angle). Beautiful language. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys literary fiction.

A Mumbai street market/shopping district (the author still refers to Mumbai as Bombay)

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

September 3, 2023

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

At the age of 12, the unnamed main character is married off to a much older man who is part of their Christian community, and sent to live in Kerala. There is an odd affliction in the family: in every generation, someone dies by drowning. Her husband is so superstitious about it that he refuses to travel by boat, even though he spends twice as much time walking to get where he needs to go. Over the next 75 years, the family grows and endures, despite hardship and tragedy.

OMG, this is unbelievable! I read all 700 pages over the Labor Day weekend - I was emotionally exhausted when I finished. I loved Verghese's earlier novel Cutting for Stone so I was a little hesitant to start his new book. How could anything measure up? But it absolutely did. I loved every word. I feel sorry for the next few authors that I read since I'm going to be ruined for anything else for awhile. A family saga, a political and historical novel, a love story but not a romance. Outstanding, highly recommended for readers of literary fiction or family sagas.

Kerala, India

Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey

July 17, 2023

Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey

Perveen Mistry, the only female solicitor in 1920s Bombay, returns for her fourth adventure, this one involving a young ayah (nanny) in a wealthy Bombay household. The young woman is accused of inducing a miscarriage by drinking an herbal concoction. When the patriarch of the household dies under mysterious circumstances, Perveen knows there is more going on than meets the eye. 

One of the attractions of this series is the atmosphere and descriptions of early 20th century India. There is a murder, but it takes a backseat to social issues that include the prescribed roles of women and the lack of legal recourse when someone commits a crime against them, status/social class, and prejudice. While the plots of this series tend to be complicated, I found the various threads of this story to be particularly complex and difficult to connect. There are also a number of side plots, including Perveen's on-going relationship with a young Englishman, issues within her family, and larger subjects such as the re-districting of princely India lands. While I recommend this series, I like this volume the least so far.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

1920s Bombay

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

January 31, 2023

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

Geeta lives in a village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where she supports herself by making wedding jewelry. Five years earlier, her no-good husband Ramesh walked out on her. It wasn't much of a loss, since Ramesh beat Geeta, stole her money, and drank heavily. After he ran off, a rumor began to circulate that Geeta had murdered Ramesh, and the story persisted. Although it troubled her at first, it kept the men (and also many women) away from her out of fear. Struggling to construct a life for herself as a single woman of undefined status living on her own (i.e., not under a man's control), Geeta's role model is Phoolan Devi, India's Bandit Queen who took revenge on all the men who abused her (physically, sexually, verbally). But now the women in the village have begun to come around, wanting Geeta's help in disposing of their own no-good husbands.

In this contemporary novel, Shroff explores issues that trouble modern India: caste, gender roles, religion, discrimination, domestic abuse. Another rec;urring theme is motherhood and the pressure placed on women to have children (preferably male children), as well as men abusing children (especially girl children). There is a lot of humor and the women are clever about getting around the men in their lives. One of my favorite aspects of the book is when Geeta rescues and adopts a street dog that she names Bandit. One of the best lines in the book is when the wanna-be don tells Geeta's husband Ramesh "killing people makes me a don; shooting a dog just makes me a psychopath. Great cover, too.  Recommended.

Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen who exacted revenge on the men who abused her and later was elected to Parliament (she was assassinated at the age of 39)

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

February 14, 2022

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

In a rural village in India in 1929, three girls are married to three brothers in a single marriage ceremony. Because of their Punjabi traditions and their eccentric mother-in-law, the girls live separately from the rest of the family in a small house called the china room because of the decorations. They have marital relations with their husbands only when the mother-in-law decides they can, and then she decides which husband can see his wife that night, and only in the pitch dark. The mother-in-law claims that it is so the oldest brother's wife doesn't lord it over the other two wives. None of the young women know exactly which brother is her husband, although they try to figure it out when they serve meals or tea to the men, by looking at their hands and listening to their voices. Mehar, the youngest and prettiest of the girls, believes she has figured out which brother is her husband and begins meeting him in secret during the day. At the same time, unrest over India's push for independence from Great Britain swirls through the village.

In a parallel story set in 1999, a young man arrives unexpectedly at his uncle's house in India. He is about to start university, and is hoping to kick his heroin addiction by separating himself from his home and friends in England. Rather than living in the family's empty house outside of the village, he stays in the china room and becomes curious about its history.

Based on a family legend about the author's great-grandmother (which is supposedly well-known in the family's home village) and long-listed for the Booker Prize, China Room is strongly character driven. The is not much plot (like a lot of literary fiction), and women are treated as servant-wives or sex objects, which is still true in much of India today (see previous review for Honor by Thrity Umrigar). 

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

September 23, 2022

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

Smita is an Indian American journalist who lives in New York and works for a major U.S. newspaper. When the local journalist is hospitalized due to an accident, Smita is assigned to cover the story of an Indian woman named Meeta whose brothers murdered her husband and left her horribly disfigured. Because Meena is a Hindu and she married a Muslim man, her brothers were outraged at how she disgraced their family honor, and their honor in their village. Although she was born in India, Smita has not been back for over 20 years, and while the cities are quite modern, rural areas like the village where Meena lived are the same as they were a hundred years ago, except for the village head man. The case forces Smita to revisit the secrets in her own painful past. At the same time, she finds herself increasingly attracted to an Indian man named Mohan. Smita can't help contrasting her own ability to have a love affair with Mohan, against the sadness of Meena's love story.

Wonderful writing, well narrated, horrible story. Meena's story is just so sad. From everything that I've read and seen about India, it sounds like a terrible place to live if you are a woman. It is incomprehensible that two men would murder their sister and her husband just because of some ancient notion of honor. At the beginning of the story, Mohan expresses his belief that India is the most wonderful place in the world. He has lived all his life in the city of Mumbai, and the closest he has been to a rural area is his family's country estate. The way Meena and her sister lived was like a revelation to him. The contrast between city life and rural life in India could not be greater - Indian villages look virtually the same as they have for hundreds of years. I did like the way Smita's story worked out, even though the novel reinforced my belief that India is one of the places that I have no desire to visit.

Mumbai, 21st century

Rural India. 21st century

The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey

August 8, 2021

The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey

Bombay, 1921 - When a female Parsi student is murdered, Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, is determined to get justice for the family. At the same time, Edward, Prince of Wales (future King Edward VIII, the one who abdicates to marry Wallis Simpson) is arriving in India for a four month visit. India chafes under British rule and tensions in the city are high. Perveen isn't surprised when the unrest escalates into riots. Her task is further complicated by racial protests and conflicts between the various religious groups (Parsi, Hindi, Buddhist, Muslim. etc.) as well as the social classes.

Prince Edward's visit to India in 1921 was a complete disaster. There was unrest throughout the country, which is accurately depicted in the novel. I enjoy Massey's Perveen Mistry series, but this one focuses more on political issues than earlier books. Indian independence, the place of women in Indian culture and society, and India's history with England are more front and center than before. The mystery is almost secondary to the political and social issues.

Edward, Prince of Wales, visiting India, 1921

A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee

November 27, 2020

A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee

Desperate for a fresh start after World War I and the death of his wife in the 1918 flu pandemic, Captain Sam Wyndham accepts a job in Calcutta, India, to head up a new criminal investigation division.  He barely arrives before he is assigned his first investigation:  the murder of a senior British official (a rising man) whose body was found behind a Calcutta brothel.

The descriptions of India at the time of the British Raj are wonderful and the history of the time is very well-researched.  Set near the end of the British Empire in India, the British are desperately trying to hang on and maintain their standard of living, while the Indian populace are pushing for home rule.  These conflicts are reflected in the interplay between Captain Wyndham and his two detectives who represent these differing points of view.  Captain Wyndham is a damaged character who unfortunately is not very good at being a detective - this is one of the main flaws in the story.  This is the first book in a series so hopefully the main character will get better at his job

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by

December 17, 2019

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal

The three Shergill sisters were all born in England, and only the oldest sister has ever visited India.  The sisters weren’t close growing up and have grown even further apart as adults.  They are shocked when their widowed mother makes a last request on her deathbed:  that her three daughters make a pilgrimage to India to visit the holy sites and spread her ashes.  Each of the sisters feels responsible for their mother’s lifelong unhappiness, and their stories unfold along their travels, bringing them closer together as their mother wished.

I was interested enough in the sisters to continue reading, but disappointed in the repetitiveness of their thoughts and the slow pacing made the story drag. 

(I’m sorry, but the India described in the book sounds like a horrible place:  very hot and humid, crowded, dirty, and dangerous for women.  There are 15% more men than women in India, due to the cultural preference for sons, and the Indian men in the story break into violence very quickly.)

The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey.

This is the second book to feature Bombay lawyer Perveen Mistry (the first title in the series was The Widows of Malabar Hill).

Perveen Mistry is one of the few women lawyers in 1920's Bombay.  Perveen is hired by the British government to negotiate with two women in a remote region who live in purdah (seclusion).  The ladies in question are the mother and grandmother of an under-age maharaja, and they are disagreeing strongly about his education.  Perveen is sent to Satapur to interview both queens and other persons such as the boy's tutor and the prime minister, and to try to get them to come to an accord about his schooling.  But when she arrives, she learns that there is more at work here than just a feuding mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.  Full of intrigue, poison, mysterious deaths, and exotic locations, this is a multi-layered mystery that also touches on issues of India's independence, women's rights, and the modern world barging into traditional societies.

For me, this second Perveen mystery was not as strong as the first.  There were some thin places in the plot and far too many minor characters.  Perveen seems clumsy and not as polished as she was in the previous book (and she also seemed to spend a lot of time clomping through the mud).  But the setting, the time period, and Perveen herself are interesting enough to appeal to many readers.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for a review.