A moving evocation of life before, during, and after Partition and the past's immeasurable impact on the present.
One family feels the ripple effects of Partition for generations after India and Pakistan are cleaved in 1947.
Reminiscent of Zadie Smith's White Teeth in its structure and themes, Suneja's debut novel splits its pages between two politically turbulent eras. One narrative thread follows Barre Nanu and Chhote Nanu, a pair of Hindu brothers, as they deal with the consequences of a misguided bomb plot and an illicit romance in Lahore amid the sunset of the British Empire. With World War II raging, many Indians have begun to chafe against colonial rule, Chhote Nanu among them. His revolutionary aspirations are complicated by his love for the beautiful Nigar Jaan, a Muslim sex worker of mixed Indian and English heritage, but he still follows through on an attempt to assassinate a cruel police superintendent. Backfiring, the scheme fails to kill the superintendent and sends Chhote Nanu to jail for nearly two and a half years. Following his release in 1946, Partition plunges the region into chaos and turns Lahore into a Pakistani territory, stranding Barre Nanu and Chhote Nanu on the wrong side of the border. Witnessing horrors as violence against Hindus intensifies, they fight to escape a country they can no longer call their own. Six decades after Chhote Nanu's imprisonment began in 1943, New York City graduate student Karan Khatri returns to his hometown, the Indian city of Kanpur, for the first time in six years after his sister sends word that Barre Nanu, their grandfather, has died. In the wake of 9/11, long-standing tensions between Hindus and Muslims have flared up in the United States, reminding Karan and his friends that they are welcome in some worlds but not in others. In addition to paying his respects to Barre Nanu, Karan has another reason for making the trip to Kanpur: He wants to know more about his parentage. While his mother has always told him that he and his sister were fathered by a Muslim man and a Hindu man, respectively, she has disclosed few other details, seemingly reluctant to do so. Family secrets come to the fore and old wounds reopen as Karan and his sister search for answers.
A moving evocation of life before, during, and after Partition and the past's immeasurable impact on the present.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781639550142
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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