From one of our Freest contemporary writers, a collection of 15
short stories personally selected by the author (all of which
appeared in her four previous collections, now out of print).
Jhabvala (not Indian herself) says in her Introduction: "India
reacts very strongly on people. Some loathe it, some love it, most
do both." That dichotomy is apparent thoughout this warm, quick,
lively collection - in story after story, the plight of the Indians
herein described is leavened by the author's almost sensuous love
of the country. In "My First Marriage," a young woman describes
falling in love with a charlatan, a kind of traveling holy man and
bigamist, who finally leaves her, but not before pulling her mind
out of a middle-class existence focusing mainly on tennis and tea
parties. In the much darker (but still comic) "The Interview," a
sensitive young man desperately in need of a job to support his
wife and family finally has a chance at a civil-service position,
but is so terrified at the interview that he bolts the room. And,
in a story which moves beyond the boundaries of India (and is
perhaps the best in the collection, "How I Became A Holy Mother"),
a model falls in with a charismatic guru after leaving the fast
track in London. Strong, deeply moving stories about a country and
its people. As Kirkus wrote about Jhavbala's 1964 collection, Like
Birds, Like Fishes: "No eye is keener, no ear more closely attuned
to this universe, recreated in all its color. . .with a love
compounded by irony." (Kirkus Reviews)
Chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books
of 1986, this volume of stories, selected by the author from her
own early work, represents the essence of her Indian experience.
Bearing Jhabvala's hallmark of balance, subtlety, wry humor, and
beauty, these stories present characters that prove to be as
vulnerable to the contradictions and oppressions of the human heart
as to those of India itself.
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