QUARANTINE

Debut short-story collection explores the lives of gay Indian-American men caught between multiple cultures.

The quarantine in Mehta’s eponymous story is not a medical situation but a kind of forced cultural dislocation imposed, as quarantines often are, for the benefit of those secreted away. Typically it’s the elderly parents of Indian immigrants who must endure a painful relocation to move in with their adult children who are bound by competing feelings of duty and guilt. Trapped in a country they don’t understand, they lash out at their reluctant caretakers. The stories are told by fully assimilated American-born grandchildren who sometimes know less about India then their grandparents know about America. That many of the stories are set in West Virginia and all of the narrators are gay makes for a unique worldview. “Citizen,” a sweet story about a young man’s attempts to help his senile grandmother prepare for American citizenship, displays a comic touch, whereas “Quarantine” and “A Better Life,” which open and close the collection, are considerably darker. Mehta is also interested in same-sex relationships, especially when they are on the verge of failing. These stories of couples on life support offer an abundance of bittersweet moments. Not only must these young men navigate the minefields that all people in love must meander through, but they must also deal with the strain of explaining their homosexuality to parents who grew up in cultures far less permissive than those in which they have raised their children. A mother’s pragmatic question—“So who does the cooking and cleaning?”—contains as many layers as an onion.

A rich study of family ties, romantic failings and cultural disconnection told in crisp, clean prose.