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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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