A splendidly conceived saga weaving the history of an entire culture into the portrait of one family: vivid, compelling,...
A kaleidoscopic debut by Anglo-Indian Le Hunte about several generations of an Indian family through the 20th century and across several continents.
Aakash was the son of a well-to-do family in a small village near the Himalayas who at an early age became known for his powers of healing; when he cured the hemophiliac son of a local maharaja, he was rewarded with a gift of land, which he turned into an “ayurvedic farm.” Although the farm prospered greatly and Aakash had two healthy children by his wife Jyoti Ma, he could never settle down to enjoy the life of a patriarch, and he eventually left his family to live in a distant ashram. His son Ram also grew up to be a wandering holy man, while his daughter Tulsi Devi was sent to a convent school where she was seduced by her math teacher and gave birth to a son (Jivan) out of wedlock. She later married a retired British Army officer and had a daughter (Rohini) by him. The sickly Jivan, who contracted polio as a small boy, was sent to a foster home to be raised by strangers, and Rohini grew up entirely ignorant of her half-brother. Years later, she would marry an Englishman and move to London, where she trained as a midwife, gave birth to a daughter (Saakshi), and became connected with the Spiritualist Church in Belgravia, where she attended regular séances to contact the spirit of her grandfather Aakash. The medium in charge of these séances stunned Rohini one day by confiding to her that her daughter Saakshi was going to give birth to an avatar, a reincarnation of Aakash’s spirit. Rohini has put much of her Indian traditions behind her. Can she really believe that her grandchild will, in fact, be her grandfather? Just think of the old Hindu totem of the serpent eating his own tail.
A splendidly conceived saga weaving the history of an entire culture into the portrait of one family: vivid, compelling, utterly fascinating.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-052197-X
Page Count: 416
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2002
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.
Seven stories, including a couple of prizewinners, from an exuberantly talented young Thai-American writer.
In the poignant title story, a young man accompanies his mother to Kok Lukmak, the last in the chain of Andaman Islands—where the two can behave like “farangs,” or foreigners, for once. It’s his last summer before college, her last before losing her eyesight. As he adjusts to his unsentimental mother’s acceptance of her fate, they make tentative steps toward the future. “Farangs,” included in Best New American Voices 2005 (p. 711), is about a flirtation between a Thai teenager who keeps a pet pig named Clint Eastwood and an American girl who wanders around in a bikini. His mother, who runs a motel after having been deserted by the boy’s American father, warns him about “bonking” one of the guests. “Draft Day” concerns a relieved but guilty young man whose father has bribed him out of the draft, and in “Don’t Let Me Die in This Place,” a bitter grandfather has moved from the States to Bangkok to live with his son, his Thai daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. The grandfather’s grudging adjustment to the move and to his loss of autonomy (from a stroke) is accelerated by a visit to a carnival, where he urges the whole family into a game of bumper cars. The longest story, “Cockfighter,” is an astonishing coming-of-ager about feisty Ladda, 15, who watches as her father, once the best cockfighter in town, loses his status, money, and dignity to Little Jui, 16, a meth addict whose father is the local crime boss. Even Ladda is in danger, as Little Jui’s bodyguards try to abduct her. Her mother tells Ladda a family secret about her father’s failure of courage in fighting Big Jui to save his own sister’s honor. By the time Little Jui has had her father beaten and his ear cut off, Ladda has begun to realize how she must fend for herself.
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1788-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
