This debut novel follows four Indian college friends who, despite their disappointing lives, reconnect in modern India while trying to find purpose and direction.
Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s the underlying theme of Swamy’s first novel, which follows four Indian friends whose lives since college have led to heartbreak. Karan, the main character, has the ability to see people in colors. After graduation, he went to the United States, where he lost the daughter of whom he was not the biological father. Arjun became a mental health professional whose wife was killed by Indian extremists. Aarti fell in love with her father-figure professor who could never love her back. Nymphomaniac Indu became an alcoholic magazine editor. All four return to Bangalore, India, the scene of their happy college days, to take pleasure in each other’s company once again as they attempt to figure out where to go from here. They also set out to find their fifth friend, Danny; what they discover about Danny helps them rediscover themselves. Swamy has written a quiet yet purposeful novel whose philosophy is spelled out by a quote from Voltaire in the epigraph: “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” Despite how many times they get knocked down, the friends get back up, still determined to find the happiness they believe life holds. The friends are vividly portrayed, although Karan, the main character, is probably the weakest, and the narrative slows when he bemoans his lot in life. Unhappy Indu and her desperate search for validation make the biggest impression. India itself is like a character—a country struggling to modernize and adjust to the presence of Google and Hewlett-Packard. The characters, like the country, are trying to find themselves in the modern world while honoring the traditional dictates of their forefathers—a difficult balancing act for any generation.
A quietly dynamic novel about the power of love, faith and friendship.
Pub Date: July 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-9382473633
Page Count: 325
Publisher: Frog Books
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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