Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

This is a non-fiction book about life in a Mumbai slum which reads like a well written novel.  It was fascinating to get insight into the lives of the incredibly poor members of Mumbai society and to watch their day to day struggle to survive against poverty, corruption, discrimination, religious tensions and the tremendous wealth which they only get to glimpse from afar.  Kudos to the author who spent months with these people who are so busy struggling to survive they do not really have time to sit around and open up about their lives to a complete stranger.  But nonetheless, open up they eventually did.

The narrative takes place primarily in the Mumbai slum known as Annawadi.  It lies right on the outskirts of Mumbai's international airport and the story begins in 2008 when India has been booming so the airport and related hotels have been growing and the threat of the airport overtaking the slum looms large. I love the title because the "beautiful forevers" is taken from a billboard on the side of the highway leading from the airport into the city.  We get to see what actually happens behind the beautiful forevers.

The main character is a teenaged boy named Abdul.  He lives in a makeshift home with his parents and several siblings.  He earns money for the family buying garbage from scavengers, sorting it and reselling it to recyclers.  Unfortunately he, together with his father and older sister, are accused of causing a neighbour woman to commit suicide by setting herself on fire.  Though he is charged as a juvenile which improves his fate, his little business never really recovers.  It is also not helped by the global recession which lowers the price recyclers are willing to pay or the terrorist attacks in Mumbai which reduce tourism and thus the amount of garbage that the airport district generates.

Besides Abdul's colourful family, we meet Asha, a local woman who is trying to capitalize on the abundant corruption of local officials to become the slum overseer.  She in fact gets ahead by sleeping with whoever can give her what she wants in return - government officials, police, etc.  One of the most heartbreaking characters is Asha's daughter - she is trying desperately to graduate from a third rate college to become a teacher, in fact teaching slum children at a school which her mother  established to obtain government and charitable funds (though her mother would be happy just to collect the money and not bother with the teaching).  Instead, being a dutiful daughter, she is dragged into her mothers schemes.

We also meet several scavengers, thieves and others - many of whom fund the only ways out are sniffing wite-out or drinking rat poison.

The book ends with the trial of Abdul and his family members.  While that eventually turns out okay, one can't help but wonder whether it really changes their fate.

A fascinating read but very depressing - though on a positive note it does clearly illustrate human resilience in the most dire of circumstances.

A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

This is a true story of Amanda Lindhout's abduction and 460 day imprisonment by Somali rebels when she makes an ill fated trip to that country.  I found it very well written, though quite graphic at times, and seemed to be a quite honest account of what happened.  Lindhout did not shy away from her guilt about going into the war torn country in the first place and the difficulties it caused for her family as well as her travelling companion, former lover and fellow captive, Nigel Brennan.  Apparently Brennan's book about the ordeal is not quite so sympathetic to Lindhout.

The book starts with Amanda's childhood in Sylvan Lake, Alberta.  She lives in a home with her mother, two brothers and her mother's abusive boyfriend.  Her father has recently come out and lives in a comparatively stable home in Red Deer with his partner.  To escape the troubles at home, Amanda hordes National Geographic magazines and dreams of escape.

She moves to Calgary at 19 with a boyfriend and makes money as a cocktail waitress which funds their first trip - backpacking through South America.  Eventually this relationship ends and she falls into a pattern of working several months to finance her travels and then traveling - to Asia, Central America and beyond.

As she becomes more experienced she travels alone and to more and more dangerous locations, especially for an unaccompanied woman.  She goes to Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East.  The tales of her travels are fascinating and at times humorous.  I was particularly amused by her description of the difficulties of renting a hotel room in Bangladesh when you are a woman without her husband or father.  On her travels she meets both journalists and photo journalists and becomes enamoured with the idea of being able to finance her travels in this way.  She even works for a time as the Baghdad reporter for an Iranian state television station.  She is not particularly successful in this line of work and feels that she needs to get to less competitive places to really make her mark.

So she decides to try her luck in Somalia.  She invites Nigel, who she had previously been involved with (he was married at the time which she did not know) but they had drifted apart.  She half expects him to say no but he comes along.

On their third day in the country they are abducted.  The remainder of the book details her experience - which is horrific.  She is starved, beaten, raped, humiliated, sick, separated from Nigel for the most part.  She receives far worse treatment just for being a woman.  She also gives a terrific account of their one unsuccessful attempt at escape - for which she is disproportionately blamed.  However, she also gives us glimpses of humanity - a neighbour who helps her escape, a woman at a mosque who risks her life in an effort to keep the kidnappers from recapturing her, and even some of the young captors.

There are also some details about the efforts by both the government and her family to obtain her release; complicated by the fact that Canada does not pay ransoms and her family has no money.  She only learns later of all the people who helped contribute to her rescue.

Definitely a worthwhile read, but not for the faint of heart - some of the descriptions of Amanda's rape and torture are very graphic.

The Night Stages by Jane Urquhart

I struggled to get through this books at times, but there were parts I liked enough to keep on going and I'm not sorry I read it though it would not be the first book I recommend you pick up.  Essentially the book tells three stories - and moves back and forth between them.

We start with Tam, an English woman who has been living in Ireland since just after World War II and is now fleeing an affair she had there.  She is flying from Dublin to New York and, after stopping in Gander to refuel, is grounded by fog.  As she sits in the waiting room she reflects on her past - a privileged childhood, a hasty marriage at a young age, flying planes during the War, another relationship with a childhood friend (and servant's son) which takes her to Ireland, and then finally the ill-fated extra marital affair with Niall.

As she reminisces she also studies a large mural that covers the walls in the airport lounge.  The second story we hear is that of the artist.  He reflects on his past and we learn how the various characters in the mural came into being.  Frankly, I was bored by this part of the book and didn't really think it added much to the main narrative.  Though maybe I just missed some deeper meaning.

Finally we learn about Niall's childhood and in particular his difficult relationship with his younger brother Kieran who he has lost touch with and has been searching for.  The story of Niall's, and especially Kieran's, childhood was for me the most interesting part of the book.  They grew up in a small town in Ireland.  When their mother dies tragically, Kieran is taken in by a widowed countrywoman and lives a very different life from his brother.  Unbeknownst to each other they both train for a rigorous bicycle race and become fierce competitors - for the title and the same woman.  The book ends with us finding out what caused the rift between the brothers.

As I said, parts of this were very slow and in my view unnecessary, but other parts were quite exciting.  I was very drawn into the bike race and the sibling rivalry it unleashed.  Because I have a trip planned to Ireland, I also enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the Irish countryside.

Three recent reads

I've been reading quickly lately and not getting a chance to post my reviews, so here are my three most recent reads:

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

I don't usually read much by Picoult as I find her novels somewhat formulaic but I needed something to read and this was lying around the house so I decided to give it a try.  It wasn't bad, though it did follow her typical formula - family issues, complicated, public and controversial court case to resolve some of these otherwise private issues, resolution (and not being sure until the end whether the resolution would cause happiness or despair).  This one was even more blatant in its attempt to pull at the heartstrings in that it included a CD of original music (lyrics by Picoult).  Each chapter was supposed to be accompanied by one track to enhance the mood/enjoyment.  That was too much for me - the CD remains in its sealed envelope.

The story centres around Zoe Baxter, a music therapist, who is now about 40.  She and her husband have been trying for years to have a child but, despite multiple expensive rounds of IVF treatment have been unsuccessful.  Eventually her husband can no longer stand the relentless pursuit of a child and leaves Zoe.  He moves back into his brother's basement (where he has been before) and drowns his sorrow in alcohol (he was a recovering alcoholic throughout his marriage).  His brother and sister-in-law eventually introduce him to their evangelical pastor who helps him find comfort in Jesus rather than the bottle.  But this leads to no end of grief for Zoe.

Zoe, in the meantime, finds love with an unlikely partner - a woman.  Because Zoe can no longer have children (medical issues you can read about) she seeks permission to have her leftover frozen embryos implanted in her partner.  This does not sit well with her ex-husband's newfound right wing Christian travelling companions.  So they fund his fight for "custody" of the embryos so he can give them to his brother and sister-in-law to be raised in a "proper" family.  Thus the high profile court case ensues.

I will not tell you how the drama ultimately unfolds in case one day you too are looking for something to read - but all the loose ends are tied up in an epilogue that takes place a few years later.  Though the story is somewhat predictable and many of the characters are more caricatures, there are some nice parts dealing with Zoe's relationship with her mother and her new partner as well as her ex-husband's relationship with his sister-in-law.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Hannah is another popular author whose books are sometimes a bit formulaic, but I really liked this one.  It focuses on the role some regular French women played during World War II.  And, given the grave subject, the ending was really sad - and well done.  Though certain passages took place in the present, the author did a really good job of keeping secret who survived the war and who did not (at least I was not able to figure it out though I had a couple of theories).

Vianne Mauriac is a 28 year old mother of one daughter in 1939 when her husband Antoine heads to the front.  Though she does not believe the Nazis will invade France, they do and, in fact, she is forced to host a German captain in her home in occupied France.  Vianne's 18 year old sister Isabelle has always been a rebellious girl and she uses this energy and drive to join the French resistance to the German occupation and the French collaborating government.

The book follows the sisters through the war years - showing how each helped fight the Nazis in their own way.  Though Isabelle was the overt risk taker, Vianne risked her life and that of her daughter to help first her best friend who was Jewish and then other Jewish children.

I really enjoyed seeing this side of the war as so much is written about the role of men, or what took place in ghettos and concentration camps.  This showed what happened from the perspective of ordinary Frenchwomen - while these women were probably not representative of many who either did nothing or even aided the Nazis, it was still interesting to see the impact that the women who tried to help could have.

Though sad and a heavy topic, this is an easy read as it is well written.

Then and Always, by Dani Atkins

This was another sad book though completely different than The Nightingale, and frankly a little bit weird.  It is about Rachel Wiltshire who is injured in a freak accident as she celebrates her high school graduation with her friends.  They are sitting in a restaurant and a car comes through the windshield injuring Rachel and killing her friend Jimmy who risked his life to save her - or so she thinks.

Five years later, Rachel returns to her home town for her best friend's wedding.  Her life has not turned out as she expected - rather than going to university, after a lengthy recovery from her accident she has moved from her hometown, become a secretary, lives in a shabby apartment over a laundromat and her father is dying from cancer.  The night before the wedding she suffers another terrible accident, banging her head, and wakes up to discover a completely different life.

In the life she wakes up to - Jimmy is not dead, her father does not have cancer, she is a journalist in London and she is engaged to her high school sweetheart, Matt.  In other words, she has the life she dreamed of having in high school.

The book tracks these two parallel lives and the reader (through Rachel who thinks she has some weird form of amnesia) is left trying to figure out what her real life is.  This is only revealed in the last few pages and is predictable in retrospect but not really something I had figured out.  Truthfully, I couldn't figure out what was going on.

I read this book quickly because I got so into it and was intrigued to find out what happened, but I'm not sure I would say it was a great book or that I would highly recommend it.  Maybe if you're looking for a way to pass a rainy afternoon or a long plane ride.  It doesn't take a lot of energy.

Diary of the Fall by Michel Laub

This was a really interesting perspective on Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren.  The book is by a Brazilian author and translated from the Portuguese.  It is written in the form of a diary written by the grandson of a survivor and it tracks both the events of his life and those of his father (who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease) and his grandfather (who died when his father was 14).

The story starts with the actual fall - although the trajectory of all 3 men's lives could certainly be seen as symbolic falls.  The author is at a 13th birthday party of one of his few non-Jewish classmates.  The classmate's mother died when he was young and he is being raised by a father who is working two jobs in order to make ends meet and who sacrificed everything to give his son this party to help him fit in.  In front of all of the boys friends and family, his classmates, including the narrator, give him the bumps and agree to drop him at the end.  He is seriously injured, ending up in the hospital and then therapy for months.  Because of his guilt, the narrator confesses to the school, alienating all of his other friends, and befriends the injured boy - even going so far as to change to a non-Jewish school with him the following year.  At the new school the narrator becomes the outsider and by the end of the year is no longer talking to the injured boy as they each hit at each other's weak spots - the narrator's grandfather's internment in Auschwitz and the other boy's dead mother.  This rift leads the narrator to turn to alcohol and to a big fight with his father where for the first and only time he is told the details of his grandfather's death and learns why this haunts his father.

The diary structure of the book is really interesting.  There are no page numbers and each chapter is broken into tiny numbered paragraphs which does help the book move quickly despite the heavy subject matter.  We also learn that the grandfather kept a detailed diary in the years before his death and the father started a diary when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's so the book is in fact the third generation diary.  The style is also interesting in that certain words, phrases and even paragraphs are repeated, but then new twists are added so that the whole story is ultimately revealed by the end.

This is a really fascinating study in the lasting impact Auschwitz had not only on the survivors but on their children and even grandchildren.  I had also never seen it told from the perspective of a family who emigrated to Brazil - though the similarities with stories of those who ended up in Israel or North America are striking.

I definitely recommend this book

The Empty Family - short stories by Colm Toibin

Continuing my desire to read Irish literature, I read this collection of short stories by Colm Toibin.  Generally I'm not a huge fan of short stories, but I like his writing so I thought I would try them.  They kept my attention but for the most part I didn't love them.

My favourite was The Colour of Shadows which was about a young man who was raised by an aunt and returns to care for her in her last couple of years.  The relationship between the two - though much of it was unspoken - was very touching.

A few of the stories took place in Barcelona (or elsewhere in Spain) rather than Ireland and many of the stories were about gay relationships.  I didn't quite get the point of The New Spain - about a girl who returns to Spain following years of exile during the Franco era only to find her father has drastically changed the property her grandmother left to her and her sister and really only wants to deal with her now as he needs her permission to make more changes.  I did quite like The Street which dealt with Pakistani immigrants to Barcelona and the narrow lives of servitude they live.  The characters in that one were sympathetic.

If you like short stories these are good ones but if, like me, you prefer more developed material like you get in a novel, you might want to pass.

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais

I read this because I was out of town and it was available on my iPad.  It was reasonably entertaining but I wouldn't go out of my way to read it unless you really enjoy long descriptive passages about French or Indian food (which I know some people do).

The story starts in Mumbai - it is told from the perspective of Hassan who is born into a poor but rising Muslim family in Mumbai.  Hassan's grandfather started out delivering tiffin lunches, moved on to lunch carts and eventually opened a restaurant on the border between a slum and Mumbai's wealthy Malabar Hill area.  Hassan's father improves upon the restaurant and his wife, sister and brother in law, parents and all five children are involved in the business.  But when tragedy strikes as a result of religious tensions in India, Hassan and his family sell their property to a developer for millions of dollars.  They first emigrate to England and live with relatives in a heavily east Indian neighbourhood near Heathrow.

In London Hassan discovers girls and his father languishes, depressed.  Getting involved with the wrong girl gets Hassan into trouble so the family picks up and leaves.  They wander Europe in an old Mercedes, sampling all the foods Hassan's father wishes to try and finally ending up in a small town near the French alps.  Here the family opens another successful Indian restaurant, much to the chagrin of their neighbour, an elderly classical French chef.

The French chef eventually takes Hassan under her wing and trains him to become a Michelin star worthy French chef in his own right.  The rest of the story follows Hassan's successes in the Paris restaurant business.

There are some interesting characters - Hassan's father, the elderly French woman, another French chef who becomes Hassan's friend and mentor in Paris.  But the real focus of this book is on the food - there are seemingly endless descriptions of shopping, choosing fresh meat, seafood or produce, and of course cooking and serving meals.