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SLEEPING ON JUPITER

Name: SLEEPING ON JUPITER
Author: Anuradha Roy
ISBN: 978-1-555-97751-1

by Anuradha Roy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016

Though this is far from a perfect novel, there's enough spark in the first-person narration to make it worthwhile.

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A holiday destination for devout Hindus is not as holy as it claims to be in this Man Booker Prize–longlisted novel.

The fictional seaside town of Jarmuli is home to many temples and ashrams, where gurus offer spiritual guidance to Indians and Westerners. The novel opens with a harrowing scene of violence which leaves a young girl orphaned. She's put on a boat to Jarmuli and is taken in by a seemingly benevolent guru. To outsiders, his ashram appears to be a spiritual paradise, but on the inside, there is rampant physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Later, 25-year-old Nomi Frederiksen, the orphaned girl from the beginning of the novel, recalls these incidents on a return trip to Jarmuli, where she claims to be filming a documentary. On a train, she meets three elderly women named Gouri, Latika, and Vidya, lifelong friends taking one last holiday together before Gouri becomes completely senile. These four travelers come across Badal, a temple guide who lusts after an underage boy, and Johnny Toppo, an old tea seller who sings mournful songs to his customers. Helping Nomi with her documentary is part-time cameraman Suraj, a middle-aged alcoholic who happens to be Vidya’s son. The strength of this novel lies in the first-person narration of Nomi, who recounts her tale of loss and abuse in beautiful, unflinching language. Her chapters alternate with chapters told in third person about the secondary characters, which do nothing to move the story forward or shed light on Nomi’s past or the legacy of sexual abuse behind the guise of spirituality in India. Gradually, the various threads lose their energy and fail to come together toward a satisfying resolution. The novel raises questions, certainly, but its refusal to tie things up with a neat bow leaves the ending feeling coy and unfairly ambiguous.

Though this is far from a perfect novel, there's enough spark in the first-person narration to make it worthwhile.

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-555-97751-1

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Graywolf

Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL THE LIVES WE NEVER LIVED
by Anuradha Roy

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOLDED EARTH
by Anuradha Roy

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.