On balance, this impressive debut novel will leave readers grateful for Dhar’s thoughtful command of her material and eager...
India’s recent past and her Hindu family’s own fragmented history complicate the new life sought in America by this dramatic first novel’s eponymous protagonist.
Indian-born Bijou lives and works in Washington, D.C., as a research resident at a prestigious medical institute. Traveling “home” to Calcutta to scatter the ashes of her recently deceased father Nitish (also an American resident) in the river running through his native city, she receives mixed welcomes from her indignant mother (who has never forgiven Nitish for his “desertion”—it’s complicated), her enthusiastically westernized younger sister and an extended family of relatives who both wish Bijou well and assume she’ll follow her father’s vagrant example yet again. A double structure of flashbacks immerses us periodically in Bijou’s own troubled Americanization (including the surrender of a possibly meaningful relationship with an admiring lover, to the shouldering of family burdens), and in Nitish’s story—that of a young intellectual participant in the “agrarian revolution” of the 1960s, who failed at commitments better kept by fellow idealistsf and who probably bears some responsibility for the sad fate of a beloved friend. When Bijou is drawn toward intimacy with Naveen, an ego-driven careerist who’s the son of her father’s oldest friend (and the possessor of secrets that trouble both their families’ memories), Bijou becomes obliged to confront issues which the well-meaning Nitish had never fully engaged. This is indeed something more than a conventional coming-of-age novel, thanks to Dhar’s sure-handed deployment of the impingement of 20th-century India’s political history on individuals struggling in its unpredictable currents. The connections aren’t made as swiftly as we might have hoped, but are there, in the story’s cumulative momentum, and they resonate strongly.
On balance, this impressive debut novel will leave readers grateful for Dhar’s thoughtful command of her material and eager to see her extend her range still further.Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-55101-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© 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
