The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar

The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar

I picked up this book at the annual library sale, all the books you can stuff in a bag for $5.  I read The Space Between Us years ago and loved it, so another novel by Ms. Umrigar caught my eye.

Reading the first page, I thought what did I get myself into.  It's written in halting English, the speech of Lakshmi, an Indian immigrant now living in New York.  At first I found it very difficult to read and couldn't quite wrap my head around what was happening to her.  In the next chapter, the voice switches to Maggie, the psychologist who has been called on to treat Lakshmi.  Their two very different worlds collide and suddenly the story becomes magic.

Both of these women are carrying deep and dark secrets.  Maggie struggles to maintain a professional relationship with Lakshmi but Lakshmi, in her simple ways gets into Maggie's heart.  In return Maggie helps Lakshmi become the independent woman she always longed to be.  But no good deed goes unpunished.

The Story Hour is beautifully written.  It shows the reader the differences in cultures and the battle that still exists for women regardless of where they have come from.  I wanted this story to go on, but Ms. Umrigar's use of her craft left me wanting more.  She is a wonderful writer and I hope I find some more of her works at the next library sale.  Maybe I won't be able to wait that long.  My Kindle is waiting.

The Ghosts That Come Between Us by Bulbul Bahuguna

The Ghosts That Come Between Us by Bulbul Bahuguna

I'm on the fence about this one.  I received an advance reading copy and was initially anxious to read this.  I love reading stories set in exotic locales such as India.  In fact awhile ago I read a really wonderful book with a similar title, The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar that was also set in India. 

I was all in on this book.  Nargis is a young Indian girl who tells her story.  I became mesmerized by the viewpoint of this child.  The author had a very uncanny ability to submerse the reader into the life of the child.  I saw everything very clearly through her eyes.  As Nargis grew up so did how she spoke and reacted to life around her.  I was hooked. Even though they had very minor parts, the Bollywood actress named Dimple and Nargis' daughter whom she named Mandy, said this book was made for me.  Dimple, without the 'S' was my nickname in college and Mandy is the main character in my own novel, One Clown Short.

In every story something bad has to happen to give the main character an impactful event that will change their view of the world.  Nargis was the youngest child in a military family.  Her father controlled every aspect of the people around him.  Her mother retreated into her shell because of it.  For many reasons, religion, culture, the family of the nineteen sixties and seventies remained trapped in the father's clutches.

The pacing of the first half of the novel kept me interested.  But when Nargis left home to attend medical school in Russia, the story slowed to a crawl. She met and married an Indian boy she met in Russia.  By the end of the book, she's singing her husband's praises yet we know almost nothing about him.  He's never mentioned throughout her entire struggle to mend her relationship with her mother after her father's death.  And yet the conflict with her mother went on for years.  In fact the author dragged it on to the point I didn't care about it any more.  Sure, Nargis' father was a bad man.  But the child's voice I loved in the first half of the book, made me want to say 'grow up' when used to describe her adult battles.  Enough was enough.

The first half of this story, I loved.  The second half, I could have lived without.  It didn't resolve anything for me.  I don't think it resolved anything for Nargis either.  So maybe we're even.  On this one, I'll just have to stay on the fence.