Though Lahiri has previously earned greater renown for her short stories, this masterful novel deserves to attract an even...
A tale of two continents in an era of political tumult, rendered with devastating depth and clarity by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author.
The narrative proceeds from the simplicity of a fairy tale into a complex novel of moral ambiguity and aftershocks, with revelations that continue through decades and generations until the very last page. It is the story of two brothers in India who are exceptionally close to each other and yet completely different. Older by 15 months, Subhash is cautious and careful, not prone to taking any risks, unlike his impetuous brother Udayan, the younger but the leader in their various escapades. Inseparable in their Calcutta boyhoods, they eventually take very different paths, with Subhash moving to America to pursue his education and an academic career in scientific research, while Udayan becomes increasingly and clandestinely involved in Indian radical militancy. “The chief task of the new party was to organize the peasantry,” writes the novelist (Unaccustomed Earth, 2008, etc.). “The tactic would be guerrilla warfare. The enemy was the Indian state.” The book's straightforward, declarative sentences will ultimately force the characters and the reader to find meaning in the space between them. While Udayan characteristically defies his parents by returning home with a wife he has impulsively courted rather than submitting to an arranged marriage, Subhash waits for his own life to unfold: “He wondered what woman his parents would choose for him. He wondered when it would be. Getting married would mean returning to Calcutta. In that sense he was in no hurry.” Yet crisis returns him to Calcutta, and when he resumes his life in America, he has a pregnant wife and, soon, a daughter. The rest of the novel spans more than four decades in the life of this family, shaped and shaken by the events that have brought them together and tear them apart—“a family of solitaries [that]...had collided and dispersed.”
Though Lahiri has previously earned greater renown for her short stories, this masterful novel deserves to attract an even wider readership.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-307-26574-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
PROFILES
Flagg flies high, and her fans will enjoy the ride.
Flagg highlights a little-known group in U.S. history and generations of families in an appealing story about two women who gather their courage, spread their wings and learn, each in her own way, to fly (I Still Dream About You, 2010, etc.).
After marrying off all three of her daughters (one of them twice to the same man), Sookie Poole is looking forward to kicking back and spending time with her husband and her beloved birds. She’s worked hard throughout life to be a good mother to her four children and a perfect daughter to her octogenarian mother. Lenore Simmons Krackenberry’s a legend in Point Clear, Ala., and has always been narcissistic, active in all the “right” organizations, and extremely demanding. She’s also become increasingly bonkers, a disorder that seems to run in the Simmons family. Throughout much of her life, Sookie’s never felt as if she’s measured up to Lenore’s exacting standards, and she’s terrified she, too, might lose her marbles. Then, Sookie receives an envelope filled with old documents that turn her world and her beliefs about herself and her family topsy-turvy. Her emotional quest for answers leads Sookie down a winding yet humorous path, as she meets with a young psychiatrist at the local Waffle House and tracks down descendants of a Polish immigrant who opened a Phillips 66 filling station in Pulaski, Wis., in 1928. What she discovers about the remarkable Jurdabralinski siblings inspires her: Fritzi, the eldest daughter, developed a unique idea to keep her father’s business operating during difficult times, but her true passion involved loftier goals. During World War II, she used her exceptional skills to serve her country in an elite program, and two of her sisters followed suit. Finding inspiration in their professional and personal sacrifices, Sookie discovers her own courage to make certain decisions about her life and to accept and take pride in the person she is. This is a charming story written with wit and empathy. The author forms a comfortable bond with readers and offers just the right blend of history and fiction.
Flagg flies high, and her fans will enjoy the ride.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6594-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A familiar tale of upper-middle-class ennui.
Over the course of a single summer, a middle-aged Manhattan couple grapples with the state of their marriage and their lives.
When Alice and Peter met, he was a young psychoanalyst and she was an even younger biophysicist. Soon, they had twin daughters. Now, he is an older psychoanalyst, she is still studying the complexities of starling flock dynamics, the twins are away at Berkeley, and the marriage is on the rocks. They have retreated into separate worlds, bored by themselves and each other. Peter has his work. For Alice, the only source of refuge is her beloved Dachshund-Chihuahua mutt named Maebelle, and when the novel opens on Memorial Day weekend, Maebelle has gone missing. Alice is devastated; Peter is annoyed. Alice has a tryst with a man she meets through a “Manhattan Lost Dog” Facebook group. Peter has escalating fantasies about a beautiful young patient. Both of them agonize, separately, over their mutual indiscretions. Sometimes, they go out to dinner. Every unhappy family may be unhappy in its own way, but it feels as though we’ve heard this story before. It is an intimate domestic drama presented without subtlety; every action has a clear and obvious motivation, and every motivation is explained at length. Alice’s infidelity, we’re told, is not just about sex, but rather because “she’d locate a shred of her former self.” Peter can’t stop fantasizing about the patient, he explains, because she reminds him “of so much I lack.” LeFavour (Lights On, Rats Out, 2017) offers an empathetic and detailed portrait of a marriage, but not—with the exception of one explosive scene toward the novel’s end—an especially insightful one.
A familiar tale of upper-middle-class ennui.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4888-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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