The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

June 4, 2025

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Sybil is a lifelong letter writer, even in the modern age of email. She is divorced, a mother and grandmother, and a retired lawyer. She has a disease that she is hiding from her children, that is causing her to lose her eyesight. Sybil is enjoying her retirement until she is asked to speak at the funeral of her former law partner. Following the funeral, she begins receiving anonymous hate mail from a disgruntled litigant.

I loved this! It is definitely the best book I’ve read so far this year. It’s literary fiction and completely written in the form of letters. Sybil and I would have gotten along well since I’ve read all the books that she mentions in her letters. Blindness seems to be a metaphor for a lot that is going on in the novel. Will appeal to readers who enjoy Ann Patchett and Fredrik Backman. Highly recommended. 

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

December 11, 2024

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

Cecily Alcantara and her family have been living in Malaya under Japanese occupation. Before that, it was the British occupation. They manage to stay under the radar, until Cecily's son Abel disappears along with a number of other teenage boys. Cecily believes this is her fault - for years before the war, she was an informant for the Japanese, believing that they would restore Asia to Asian rule, and now she considers this to be her punishment.

A different perspective on World War II, set in Malaya (now Malaysia) and told from the perspectives of the residents of a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. There are many layers to the story and the plot started to drag about halfway through. I started skimming until the last 50 pages when the threads of the story come together. Will appeal to readers who enjoyed The Shadow of the Banyan or When the Elephants Dance, which I thought were much better books.

A Malayan town under Japanese occupation

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)