Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Shree, whose novel Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize, unfolds a dreamlike narrative of the mysterious friendship between two women in an unnamed city in India. Following the death of his aunt Chachcho, Bitva is staying in the apartment where she raised him with her husband, Om Babu, who's also dead. To Bitva's chagrin, Chachcho's closest friend, Lalna, moves into the apartment and sets about rearranging the rooms and sorting through Chachcho's belongings. In the days that follow, Bitva recollects the deep and unusual connection between Chachcho, a dutiful and obedient wife, and Lalna, who Chachcho took in after her marriage failed. He also remembers speculation among the neighbors that Lalna was his biological mother. Her long-ago affair with Om Babu further clouds the truth of Bitva's origin. Later sections of the evocative novel are told from Lalna's perspective and that of an omniscient narrator, further exploring a friendship that defies social expectations and the boundaries of familial kinship, and whose most vivid moments are shared on the rooftop of the apartment complex, where the private lives of the women unfold freely. Readers are in for a treat. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A house both shelters and reveals secrets in this novel translated from Hindi. Through a prism created by multiple viewpoints, Shree--who won the International Booker Prize forTomb of Sand in 2022--delivers a compact novel exploring broad themes including grief, memory, and the truths of women's lives. The complicated social ecosystem of the novel's setting is sketched out, at first, by Bitva, an adult man struggling to accept the death of his beloved mother figure, Chachcho. Almost all the action of the story, both present and recalled, occurs under the rolling, uneven, and sealike roof of Laburnum House, a complex of hundreds of homes. Shortly after Chachcho's death, to Bitva's annoyance and discomfort, Lalna, a woman who had previously been part of the household, reappears and settles in. Carrying the narrative forward, Lalna relates episodes of her relationship with Bitva's family, most particularly about her intense relationship with Chachcho. The strong bond between the two had been the subject of gossip within the community and the women often sought escape from prying eyes and stifling conventions by climbing to the undulating roof of the complex. Shree's whimsical descriptions of life on the roof include references to the skylights which offered glimpses of the goings on below: real, imagined, and, in any event, gossiped about. (Doors seem to have ambiguous importance in the almost animate house, as well.) Doubts about Bitva's parentage and heredity are alluded to, as are Lalna's roles in the household and in Chachcho's stultifying marriage. The more objective third-person narration of the novel's conclusion invites readers to ponder the actual nature of these relationships. Differing displays of grief and affection are clearly drawn in this enigmatic and often liminal depiction of lives, loves, and losses, examined from various angles. Intricate, subtle, nuanced, perceptive, rewarding. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
