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SHARMILA'S BOOK
Kirchner, Bharti
1999 6341 ABOUT THE BOOK Sharmila's Book FROM THE PUBLISHER Born and raised in Chicago, Sharmila Sen longs for a deeper connection to her Indian heritage. Just past her thirtieth birthday and satisfied with her professional life as an artist, Sharmila's love life leaves much to be desired. After some consideration, she decides to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother, mother, and many other women in her community and agrees to an arranged marriage. At first, Sharmila is thrilled with Raj Khosla, a handsome, successful New Dehli businessman who writes Sharmila passionate letters promising a beautiful life together, yet when she arrives in India doubts begin to gather. While Sharmila is falling in love with the vibrant, chaotic street life and serene monuments and traditions that make up paradoxical modern India, her intended husband seems cold and distant, her future mother-in-law is controlling and suspicious, and there is a sinister mystery surrounding the "accidental" death of Raj's first wife. To complicate matters further, Sharmila's friendship with the family's chauffeur, a member of the "untouchable" caste, is growing increasingly intense. In her second novel of romance and suspense with an exotic flavor, Bharti Kirchner once again explores the richness and confusions of belonging to two cultures. In Sharmila, she has created a wry, always engaging heroine-- a contemporary woman who embraces the traditional life-- only to become liberated in the most unexpected ways. FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly Sharmila Sen, Chicago-born graphic artist and aerobics instructor, is a "thoroughly modern" 32-year-old woman who's looking for lasting love and a way to get in touch with her Indian heritage. Reeling from a series of short, broken romances, Sharmila counterintuitively tries to achieve both goals with one move: bowing to her concerned, traditional Indian mother's wishes, Sharmila agrees to an arranged marriage. Soon, New Delhi electronics executive Raj Khosla, whom she has never met, is chosen as her fiance, and Sharmila moves to India, a country she vaguely remembers from a single childhood trip. The premise of Indian-born Seattle novelist (Shiva Dancing) Kirchner's amorous misadventure seems like a pretext for a witty dissection of some of India's anachronisms and rigidities, notably arranged marriage, male chauvinism and the stigmatization of lower-caste or "untouchable" persons. Sharmila, arriving in Delhi, tries hard to fall in love with Raj, even as she discovers that her exacting fiance, a stuffed shirt, travels constantly, beds other women and may be concealing a dark secret about the circumstances surrounding the death of his first wife. Fortunately, Sharmila comes to her senses when she discovers Raj in bed with the housemaid, and by then she's found genuine love with the Khoslas' chauffeur, honest, noble Prem, a well-educated "untouchable." But in one of the many improbable plot twists, Sharmila's mother destroys her plans to marry Prem, offending his pride with a $50,000 bribe to get lost. The novel bristles with postfeminist insights into "how women perpetuate their deplorable condition" in India, but more eerily describes how the families of the betrothed conspire to keep the ill-matched pair together despite their obvious discord. Though Kirchner's cautionary tale is sometimes smart, swift and funny, with rich dollops of local color, the story's unlikely trajectory makes it hard to muster much interest in Sharmila's romantic dilemma. (Mar.) Library Journal Sharmila Sen, a Chicago-born graphic artist raised with two cultures, makes the decision to travel to India and accept an arranged marriage. She is to spend the two months prior to the wedding with the family of her prospective groom. Gradually, Sharmila discovers in India a country that calls to her soul, meets a casteless family and develops personal relationships that will not be allowed to survive her marriage, and uncovers some uncomfortable truths about her betrothed and the accidental death of his first wife. Penguin Group (USA) 0-525-94368-4 / 9780525943686
Hardcover As New As New Book Jacket New York
Price:
15.75 USD
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