Tragedy befalls an Indian girl whose elders preordain her marital destiny in this absorbing drama, based on a true story.
When Meenakshi’s mother dies during childbirth, her father relinquishes the newborn to his sister and brother-in-law, Shamanna. Seeing Meena as a threat to his daughter’s potential suitors, Shamanna mistreats his fragile, obedient niece. It’s the early 1900s, and Indian tradition obliges young teenagers to enter into prearranged marriages. The homely yet moneyed Kamakshi is betrothed to her cousin Chandru, while the beautiful orphan Meena is bound to Ramu, a sickly, impotent 42-year-old man. A Romeo and Juliet–type scenario ensues when Meena and Chandru fall in love but are forbidden to wed. Resigned to uphold tradition, duty and honor to their families, they are reduced to occasional amorous glances while trapped in miserable marriages. Chandru turns to booze and prostitutes to blunt his longing for Meena. He abuses Kamakshi with the fury of an untamed beast. Meena begs him to restore his dignity as a husband and father, but he tells her it’s impossible, that without her, drink is his “life’s partner.” Chandru fathers five children, but Meena remains barren, a curse she believes God ordained for her. But when Kamakshi falls ill, Meena offers to take care of Chandru and their children. Weeks after returning home to her feeble husband, she discovers she is pregnant. No longer shamed by infertility, everyone rejoices and prays for a male offspring. But when Kamakshi and Ramu learn of their spouses’ betrayals, jealousy, fury and guilt lead to unforeseen consequences Herculean in nature. In tightly knitted prose, Rajanna explores ancient customs of Southern India that hold religion and superstition, familial rank and obedience in the highest regard. He expertly reflects India’s strict adherence to loyalty, the importance of the dowry and the significance of one’s position within the family. With the furor of a Greek tragedy, their lives unfold with dire consequences. A vivid chronicle of calamity that yanks at the heartstrings.
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2010
ISBN: 978-1449047795
Page Count: 231
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
