Cinnamon Gardens by Shaym Selvadurai

Enchanted by Selvadurai's latest move, I decided to pick up one of his older titles and was not disappointed.  This book is entirely set in British Ceylon and provides a good introduction to the historical roots of the conflicts in present-day Sri Lanka.  The characters are primarily upper class Ceylonese who are negotiating with the British - some want full independence, some partial.  Most tend to agree that universal franchise would not be appropriate though Annalukshmi, a young female teacher who bristles at her family's expectation that she will give up teaching to marry, does feel enfranchisement of educated women is appropriate.

We follow Annalukshmi through two unsuccessful matchmaking attempts and an equally unsuccessful match which she finds on her own.  The book also tells the story of her more traditional younger sister, through whom we see the pros and cons of agreeing to an arranged marriage.

The other central character in the book is Annalukshmi's uncle Balendran, a closeted gay who gave up a happy relationship with a British man once his father found out about it.  He has since married and had a son and we see the havoc that prevails when his former lover visits Sri Lanka.  We also learn of his brother Arul who was banished to India for marrying a lower caste woman.  Though on a visit to India, Balendran learns of his father's secrets which causes him to question his obedience to him.

All in all this is an interesting read filled with colourful characters.

Tomorrow There Will be Apricots by Jessica Soffer

Overall I didn't really enjoy this book.   There were times when I really wanted to know what would happen next but most of the time I was bored.  The book tells the story of two lonely people - Victoria whose husband has just passed away and Lorca, a young teenager who self mutilates, in my mind justifiably given how cruel and uncaring her mother is.

Lorca, always trying without success to please her mother, seeks out Victoria as the chef at restaurant where her mother claims to have had her favourite meal ever.  Victoria offers cooking classes at the behest of her odd neighbour (though aptly named) Dotty.  Lorca is the only one to show up.  And the two women bond - briefly believing their connection is even greater.  At the end they are there for each other - but first there are some twists and turns.

The book also revolves around recipes and food - all of Lorca's metaphors are food related.  At first I thought it was interesting - then it seemed too forced.

In all I don't really recommend this book unless you are very interested in Iraqi recipes or lonely people.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

I loved previous novels by Lahiri and this one did not disappoint.  I found it particularly interesting as it was primarily written from the perspective of men though it also told the story of several women.

Most of the book is written from the perspective of Subhash, at the start a young boy in Calcutta, who has no memories of life before the birth of his brother and constant companion, Udayan.  The boys are born during World War II and have vague recollections of the day Indian independence was declared - mostly of the fever they both suffered from at the time.  Despite Indian independence they are subjected to the remains of colonialism when they are beaten by a policeman for sneaking into a club that serves the British and other foreigners.

The boys attend school, then college and Udayan becomes enamoured with the Communist movement known as the Naxalites (for the town where it was born).  Subhash follows a more traditional path and accepts a position at a small college in Rhode Island.  Some of my favourite descriptive passages were those that contrasted the noise and crowds of Calcutta to the peaceful, emptiness in small town Rhode Island.

Subhash studies, becomes involved with an American woman who is separated from her husband, bonds with his roommate, a Vietnam war activist, and is alarmed to read a letter from Udayan informing him of his marriage to a girl he's been involved with since before Subhash left India.  Though Udayan's letters following his marriage no longer refer to his political affairs, Subhash eventually receives a telegram advising him of Udayan's sudden death.  He returns to India to face his parents who are broken and will not speak of what happened as well as Udayan's widow who has just discovered she is pregnant.

Udayan impulsively decides to marry her and bring her to the United States and to raise her child as his own.  The remainder of the book gives us the perspectives of Subhash, his wife and their daughter as they adjust to life together, and eventually apart, in the US.  We also slowly learn more about Udayan's political involvement and the events that led to his death.  By the end Subhash is an elderly man, who has earned his close relationship with his daughter and granddaughter.  The scenes between Subhash and his daughter are also wonderful to read.

I definitely recommend this book.

My Mother's Secret by J.L. Witterick

This book is regrettably far more simplistic than the reviews let on.  I think it would be a great introductory read for a young teenager to learn something about the Holocaust, and particular those who risked their lives to help others.  But, as an adult I found both the story and the character development lacking.

The book is written from four perspectives:  Helena, who together with her mother Franciszka, hid two Jewish families and a defecting German soldier in their small home in Poland following the German invasion in World War II; Bronek, a Jewish labourer whose family is hidden by Helena and Franciszka in the rafters of their pig sty; Mikolaj, a prominent Jewish doctor whose hidden along with his wife and son under the floor of Helena's kitchen and Vilheim, a German soldier who cannot bear the role and is hidden in a small crawl space in Helena's attic.

We learn a little about everyone's very normal life before the war, then a bit more about the atrocities they are faced with during the war.  Even Helena is not spared as her brother is killed taking food to Jewish partisans.  And then we see how the simple Polish women juggle the three groups who are hiding, each unaware of the other, and manage to provide them with food and shelter until liberation.

This is based on a true story, and does illustrate how goodness can prevail in the face of unspeakable evil.  And how help is found in the least likely places - each of the Jewish families was turned down by people they new far better than Franciszka but who were afraid to help.  I just wish it could have delved a little deeper into everyone's story.

Bone & Bread by Saleema Nawaz

This is a well written novel about complicated family dynamics and the lasting impact of childhood trauma and guilt.

Beena and Sadhana are teenagers living above their family bagel shop in Montreal.  There's is an unusual childhood from the start.  Their father a Sikh baker whose family has never approved of his career choice or his wife, a white woman who converted to Sikhism but is really more of a spiritualist.  Their father dies of a heart attack when they are too young to really remember him, and their mother of an unfortunate accident for which they blame themselves, when they are young teenagers.  The girls are left in the care of their formal, and rigid paternal uncle who is a bachelor that also has taken over running the bagel shop.

The girls rebel in different ways.  Beena becomes involved with one of the "bagel boys" who works at the shop but disappears after impregnating her at 15.  Sadhana begins a life long struggle with anorexia.  Beena is left to raise both her sister and her son, never really developing her own personality until she and her son move to Ottawa in an effort to live independently.  But the sister continue to rely on each other - travelling back and forth to care for each other and for Beena's son, Quinn.

The book begins in the present, when Sadhana has died of a heart attack at 32 and Beena and Quinn are both feeling responsible as when they'd last seen her they'd fought over Sadhana agreeing to help Quinn find his father, against Beena's wishes.  The book then moves back and forth until we learn the details of their childhoods and young adulthood.  We learn of the secrets they kept from each other, and other's in their lives.  And we see what happens when both Beena and Quinn finally agree to meet with his father.

There are numerous other interesting characters, including Beena and Sadhana's yoga teaching, mystical mother and her equally eccentric friends, Ravi, Quinn's father, who grows into an anti-immigrant political candidate, Libby, Sadhana's lover who Beena only learns of following her death and who carries her own guilty secrets surrounding the death, and Evan, Beena's young police officer boyfriend whose upbringing in a stable family on a Saskatchewan farm could not be more different than Beena's.  But what really kept me going was trying to find some resolution to the complicated relationships between the self-described unconventional family of Beena, Sadhana and Quinn.

The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai

This is the first book I've read by Selvadurai but I will definitely look into others.  If this book is any indication, he has an engaging descriptive style and excels at developing complex and fascinating characters.  The novel centres on Shivan, a Canadian immigrant from Sri Lanka who is now in his early thirties.  He is preparing to return to his place of birth to visit his grandmother who is dying.  The book seamlessly moves from past to present as we learn about Shivan's difficult childhood, particularly after he and his sister and widowed mother move into his grandmother's home.  His Sinhalese mother had been estranged from her mother since marrying a Tamil man.  The grandmother takes the family in, but only at Shivan's expense.  His grandmother took a liking to him and begins grooming him to take over her property management business.  From a young age he is exposed to her crooked dealings, her main "thug" and her aggressive and stingy nature.

But we also eventually learn of the hard past that led to his grandmother's behaviour.  She is oddly both manipulative and cruel, and pathetic or even sympathetic.  Just after high school Shivan's family leaves the grandmother behind and immigrates to Canada.  There they are faced with poverty, his mother's depression and Shivan's coming to terms with being gay.  After a few years of struggling to fit in he returns for a short visit to Sri Lanka - which is lengthened when he falls in love with an old school friend.  But when his grandmother finds out he is gay she sets in motion a terrible sequence of events from which Shivan has yet to recover though he returns to Canada, sets out on his own to Vancouver, finds a respectable job and falls in love again.

We are left hoping, but not confident, that his next visit to his grandmother will bring the closure he needs to allow him to move on.

Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam

Out of respect and passion for Atwood, I've read all three of her speculative fiction trilogy despite this really not being my favoured genre.  And I was disappointed with this last book.  It seemed forced to me - like she really wanted to wrap up the story but didn't have a lot to say.  It lacked the imaginative language created in the other two books, particularly the religion and even hymns found in the The Year of the flood.  Maybe if I'd read the other two books more recently, I'd have had more interest in the characters as I'd have remembered their pasts more clearly.  But, even with the brief summaries of the other two books at the start of this one, I felt a bit lost and disconnected from the characters.

That being said, Atwood's writing is, as usual, intelligent and engaging.  But her political messages were less cleverly disguised than usual and, in my view, detracted from the story somewhat.  This book takes place months after the Waterless Flood pandemic that wiped out most of humanity.  We follow the lives of some survivors as well as a the Crakers, a quasi-human species engineered by the deceased Crake, as they gear up for battle, allied with pig like creatures, against some of the less desirable survivors.  And, despite, the downsides, I was drawn into the story and really did want to see how it ended.

So the master again wrote a great book, but I wouldn't say it's one of her best.