SWIMMING LESSONS

by Rohinton Mistry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 1988

Indian-Canadian Mistry's first collection of 11 stories--which center on tenants of Firozsha Baag, a Bombay apartment complex--are various, compelling, and create a vibrant mosaic of a culture and a community. In ""Auspicious Occasion,"" Rustomje, a decaying curmudgeon preoccupied with his bowels, and Mehroo, his young wife, live through the Parsi holy day of Behram roje (Mehroo's birthday and the couple's anniversary as well) despite a murder at the Parsi fire-temple and other small indignities. The piece--quiet, realistic, and affectionately precise--sets the tone for what follows. Najamia is the owner of the only refrigerator in the complex, and in ""One Sunday,"" she returns home from a day-trip to find a lower-class servant in her flat: the story of the quasi-magical refrigerator and the servant's capture introduce us to additional recurring characters, again with telling psychological realism and incident. Jaakaylee, in ""The Ghost of Firozsha Baag,"" tells of how he became a ghost-seer: the old mingles with the new. ""The Collectors,"" about sexual initiation and friendship, turns much darker: Dr. Moody, a fervent stamp-collector, ignores his own son, a bully, to befriend the bookworm Jehangin, and their collecting serves as a backdrop for a heartbreaking coming-of-age tale. ""Squatter""--a story-within-a-story told by Nariman, the resident storyteller--is a great self-conscious riff on the art of captivating an audience. Finally, the title story--which alternates between the writer (now in Canada) and his parents (still in Firozsha Baag)--exquisitely combines autobiography and fiction: at its end, the writer's parents are reading and commenting on the story in which they appear, and on the collection that we (the readers) have in our hands. An auspicious debut, crowded with acutely observed common life. In its quiet way, a small masterpiece.

Pub Date: Feb. 7, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION