Though the people drive the plot, it is Syal’s exploration of traditional gender roles—and the difficulty of escaping them...
Second-novelist Syal (Anita and Me, 1997) offers another foray into the world of British-born Indians, this time a trio of women attempting to break the oppressive bonds of their culture.
Tania, Sunita, and Chila have been friends since their London childhood, and the patterns of that friendship have continued into their adult lives. Tania the playground brawler has grown into a cold beauty whose success as a filmmaker compensates for the rift with her family. Sunita began college as a socialist, a feminist, and a punk law-student but ended her university days by failing her exams and marrying. Chila, her innocence always protected by the other two, steadfastly clung to a traditional role and finally married in her 30s. Spanning the two years after Chila's wedding to the wealthy Deepak, the story traces the three women’s blossoming independence, achieved by all with a heavy dash of personal anguish. When Tania makes a documentary on relationships, she includes Chila and Sunita, but the results are less than pleasing: the film exposes Chila as simpering and obedient, then displays the frost that has developed between Sunita and her husband. Aired on national television, the documentary severs the friendship—as does the fact that Tania is spied in a passionate embrace with Deepak—but it also provides a catalyst for all three women: Sunita loses weight and goes back to school; Chila, now pregnant, begins dreaming of the possibilities of an independent life; and Tania starts a slow journey back to her roots.
Though the people drive the plot, it is Syal’s exploration of traditional gender roles—and the difficulty of escaping them without rejecting one's heritage—that provides the center of this fine, well-crafted tale.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-56584-614-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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