Quantcast

The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar

September 2, 2014 by

Source: Harper
Hardcover, 336 pages
On Amazon and on Kobo

The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar is told from two points of view; in Lakshmi Patil’s broken English we see all sides of her marriage to a man she doesn’t love in a country that is unfamiliar and in her Africa-American therapist Maggie Bose’s voice readers are exposed to the cultural dissonance that occurs between multicultural couples and friends.  Stories take on a life of their own in Umrigar’s latest novel, and it is the weaving and unweaving of these stories that brings to the forefront the struggles Americans continue to have with those from other countries.  There is a lack of understanding for cultural norms and often judgments that come with that lack of understanding.  In Lakshmi’s hour-long therapy sessions, Maggie see the differences and similarities between them come alive, but cultural dissonance is not just one-sided here.  Lakshmi also struggles to understand her therapist’s choices when it comes to her marriage to Sudhir and own happiness.

“He turns around and his face look surprise as I rush toward him like the Rajdhani Express.  He take a steps back, as if he thinking I will run into him, like train derailment.  But I stops just in front of him and now my mouth feels dry and no wordings are coming to my mind.”  (page 7 ARC)

Maggie’s life was far from perfect before she met her husband, and while at college, surrounded by similarly minded people, she felt at home and respected.  But when she ventured outside of the campus, it was clear that others perceived her based on appearance or their own cultural experiences.  While these are the experiences that shaped her, she continued her schooling to become a therapist, one so well liked by her colleagues that they often referred to her the most difficult of cases.  But her school and work experiences are not all of her, and there are secrets that she hasn’t even told her husband about, at least not completely.  She has created a narrative that she is comfortable with, even though she knows that it is not the truth of her.  Lakshmi also lives a life clouded by lies, but her lies are to those outside her marriage and to herself.  She must also learn to move beyond the story she has created for herself and others to get at the truth of her being.

Through these ladies’ points of view, questions of identity, culture, and isolation are explored, and ultimately, these characters need to learn to break down the barriers between themselves and others if they wish to find happiness and freedom.  The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar is seductive in its multilayered approach, leading readers to be sucked into the isolated life of Lakshmi and the idyllic American life of Maggie, only to discover that assumptions and first impressions are not the truth.  We create our own stories for ourselves and for others, but it is only when we tell the truth of who we are that we can be set free from perception and judgment.

About the Author:

Thrity Umrigar is the author of three other novels—The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time—and the memoir First Darling of the Morning. A journalist for 17 years, she is the winner of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University and a 2006 finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. An associate professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, Umrigar lives in Cleveland.  Please visit her Website.

Other reviews of this author’s books:

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: ,

Mailbox Monday #276

June 23, 2014 by

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog.

To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links.  Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Vicki, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what I received:

1.  The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar for review from Harper.

An experienced psychologist, Maggie carefully maintains emotional distance from her patients. But when she meets a young Indian woman who tried to kill herself, her professional detachment disintegrates. Cut off from her family in India, Lakshmi is desperately lonely and trapped in a loveless marriage to a domineering man who limits her world to their small restaurant and grocery store.

Moved by her plight, Maggie treats Lakshmi in her home office for free, quickly realizing that the despondent woman doesn’t need a shrink; she needs a friend. Determined to empower Lakshmi as a woman who feels valued in her own right, Maggie abandons protocol, and soon doctor and patient have become close friends.

2.  Ladies’ Night by Mary Kay Andrews from my mom.

Grace Stanton’s life as a rising media star and beloved lifestyle blogger takes a surprising turn when she catches her husband cheating and torpedoes his pricey sports car straight into the family swimming pool.  Grace suddenly finds herself locked out of her palatial home, checking account, and even the blog she has worked so hard to develop in her signature style.  Moving in with her widowed mother, who owns and lives above a rundown beach bar called The Sandbox, is less than ideal.  So is attending court-mandated weekly “divorce recovery” therapy sessions with three other women and one man for whom betrayal seems to be the only commonality.  When their “divorce coach” starts to act suspiciously, they decide to start having their own Wednesday “Ladies’ Night” sessions at The Sandbox, and the unanticipated bonds that develop lead the members of the group to try and find closure in ways they never imagined.  Can Grace figure out a new way home and discover how strong she needs to be to get there?

3.  Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming for review from Harper’s It Books.

In his unique and engaging voice, the acclaimed actor of stage and screen shares the emotional story of his complicated relationship with his father and the deeply buried family secrets that shaped his life and career

A beloved star of stage, television, and film—“one of the most fun people in show business” (Time magazine)—Alan Cumming is a successful artist whose diversity and fearlessness is unparalleled. His success masks a painful childhood growing up under the heavy rule of an emotionally and physically abusive father—a relationship that tormented him long into adulthood.

When television producers in the UK approached him to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show in 2010, Alan enthusiastically agreed. He hoped the show would solve a family mystery involving his maternal grandfather, a celebrated WWII hero who disappeared in the Far East. But as the truth of his family ancestors revealed itself, Alan learned far more than he bargained for about himself, his past, and his own father.

4.  Juliet by Anne Fortier from Anna.

Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved Aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.

This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #249

December 16, 2013 by

Mailbox Monday (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch.  December’s host is Rose City Reader.

***Here are the results of the Mailbox Monday poll and what we all can expect in 2014 and beyond.***

The meme allows bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received:

1. Ripper: A Novel by Isabel Allende for review.

The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Yet, while their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda’s father, she’s reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her—Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco’s elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL.

While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature, like her father, the SFPD’s Deputy Chief of Homicide. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world.

When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, discovering, before the police do, that the deaths may be connected. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother’s disappearance be linked to the serial killer? Now, with her mother’s life on the line, the young detective must solve the most complex mystery she’s ever faced before it’s too late.

2.  The Memory of Lost Senses by Judith Kinghorn for review.

Cecily Chadwick is idling away the long, hot summer of 1911 when a mysterious countess moves into the large, deserted country house on the edge of her sleepy English village. Rumors abound about the countess’s many husbands and lovers, her opulent wealth, and the tragedies that have marked her life. As Cecily gets to know her, she becomes fascinated by the remarkable woman—riveted by her tales of life on the Continent, and of the famous people she once knew. But the countess is clearly troubled by her memories, and by ruinous secrets that haunt her…

Staying with the countess is a successful novelist and dear friend who has been summoned to write the countess’s memoirs. For aspiring writer Cecily, the novelist’s presence only adds to the intrigue of the house. But it is the countess’s grandson, Jack, who draws Cecily further into the tangled web of the countess’s past, and sweeps her into an uncertain future…

3.  Tiny Stories tote.

 

 

4.  Mr. Knightley’s Diary by Amanda Grange from the library sale.

Between managing his estate and visiting his brother in London, Mr. Knightley is both exasperated and amused by his irresistibly beautiful, outrageously mischievous neighbor, Emma Woodhouse, whose misguided attempts at matchmaking are wreaking havoc in the village of Highbury.

But when a handsome newcomer arrives and catches Emma’s attention, Mr. Knightley is shocked by his reaction. Amusement gives way to another emotion entirely-for his unreasonable dislike of the handsome newcomer seems suspiciously like jealousy.

5.  Edmund Bertram’s Diary by Amanda Grange from the library sale.

At ten years of age, Fanny Price came to live with Edmund Bertram and his family at Mansfield Park. Far from the brat Edmund expected, Fanny became his closest confidante and dearest friend.

But when the fashionable Crawford siblings? Henry and Mary?come to town, they captivate the Bertram family. Henry embarks on a scandalous flirtation with Edmund?s sister, who is already betrothed to another, while Edmund is enchanted by Mary?s beauty and wit. But when it appears that Mary is not all she seems to be, Edmund will turn to the one woman who has always been at his side to find the happiness he deserves?Fanny.

6.  Captain Wentworth’s Diary by Amanda Grange from the library sale.

During his shore leave from the Navy, Frederick Wentworth falls in love with the elegant and intelligent Miss Anne Elliot?only to see his hopes of marrying her dashed by her godmother.

Eight years later, Wentworth has realized his ambitions. A wealthy captain, he has pushed his memories of Anne to the furthest recesses of his mind?until he sees her again. And though Anne?s bloom has faded, Wentworth is surprised to find that his regard for her wit and warmth has not.

7.  The Archivist by Martha Cooley from the library sale.

A young woman’s impassioned pursuit of a sealed cache of T. S. Eliot’s letters lies at the heart of this emotionally charged novel — a story of marriage and madness, of faith and desire, of jazz-age New York and Europe in the shadow of the Holocaust. The Archivist was a word-of-mouth bestseller and one of the most jubilantly acclaimed first novels of recent years.

8.  The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar from the library sale.

Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years. A powerful and perceptive literary masterwork, author Thrity Umrigar’s extraordinary novel demonstrates how the lives of the rich and poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and how the strong bonds of womanhood are eternally opposed by the divisions of class and culture.

9. Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni from the library sale.

With Bicycles, she’s collected poems that serve as a companion to her 1997 Love Poems. An instant classic, that book—romantic, bold, and erotic—expressed notions of love in ways that were delightfully unexpected. In the years that followed, Giovanni experienced losses both public and private: a mother’s passing, a sister’s too, and a massacre on the campus where she teaches. Yet just when it seemed life was spinning out of control, Giovanni rediscovered love—what she calls the antidote. Here romantic love—and all its manifestations, the physical touch, the emotional pull, the hungry heart—is distilled as never before by one of our most talented poets.

10.  The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck from the library sale.

This collection of stunningly beautiful poems encompasses the natural, human, and spiritual realms, and is bound together by the universal themes of time and mortality. With clarity and sureness of craft, Gluck’s poetry questions, explores, and finally celebrates the ordeal of being alive.

 

11. Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes from the library sale.

The poems in Birthday Letters are addressed (with just two exceptions) to Plath, and were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Some are love letters, others haunted recollections and ruminations. In them, Hughes recalls his and Plath’s time together, drawing on the powerful imagery of his work–animal, vegetable, mythological–as well as on Plath’s famous verse.

Countless books have discussed the subject of this intense relationship from a necessary distance, but this volume–at last–offers us Hughes’s own account. Moreover, it is a truly remarkable collection of pems in its own right.

12.  Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith from the library sale.

In Morality for Beautiful Girls, Precious Ramotswe, founder and owner of the only detective agency for the concerns of both ladies and others, investigates the alleged poisoning of the brother of an important “Government Man,” and the moral character of the four finalists of the Miss Beauty and Integrity Contest, the winner of which will almost certainly be a contestant for the title of Miss Botswana. Yet her business is having money problems, and when other difficulties arise at her fiancé’s Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, she discovers the reliable Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is more complicated then he seems.

13.  The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith from the library sale.

Mma Precious Ramotswe is content. Her business is well established with many satisfied customers, and in her mid-thirties (“the finest age to be”) she has a house, two adopted children, a fine fiancé. But, as always, there are troubles. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has not set the date for their marriage. Her able assistant, Mma Makutsi, wants a husband. And worse, a rival detective agency has opened in town—an agency that does not have the gentle approach to business that Mma Ramotswe’s does. But, of course, Precious will manage these things, as she always does, with her uncanny insight and her good heart.

14.  The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith from the library sale.

Still engaged to the estimable Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe understands that she should not put too much pressure on him, as he has other concerns, especially a hair-raising request from the ever persuasive Mma Potokwane, matron of the orphan farm. Besides Mma Ramotswe herself has weighty matters on her mind. She has been approached by a wealthy lady to check up on several suitors. Are these men interested in the lady or just her money? This may be a difficult case, but it’s just the kind of problem Mma Ramotswe likes and she is, as we know, a very intuitive lady.

I did snag some books for gifts for my daughter and some other people, but I won’t post them here, in case they are watching….reading…

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar

August 23, 2012 by

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar focuses on four women — Laleh, Kavita, Armaiti, and Nishta — who were in college during the 1970s in India and were part of a socialist movement with their male friends Iqbal and Adish.  The students were caught in the midst of a nation’s struggle to improve its government and build a new identity as corruption had plagued the elections process and religious violence against Muslims and Hindus occurred relatively frequently.  In the late 1970s, The Emergency was declared in India, which gave the government extraordinary powers to restrict civil liberties, and led to a number of arrests and violence, among other things.

Laleh, Nishta, Armaiti, and Kavita were idealists looking to create a new world, and with their combined enthusiasm and wide-eyed innocence about a world that they could create for their futures and that of India, they dove headlong into the movement they thought best poised to help them achieve their goals.  However, the realities of social movements intervened, demonstrating the brutality on both sides and those realities forced them to choose the path that would lead them into adulthood.  Looking back on their college years, some of the group is filled with regret at what was not achieved and the friends lost, while others are glad to have had their delusions shattered and the truth revealed.  Umrigar’s characterizations demonstrate the ways in which poignant events in history can leave a lasting impression on idealists, forcing their perceptions to skew so much that they adopt the most radical of views or forcing them to realize that bodily and emotional harm are not endurable.  Although there is one member of the group who followed her ideals and made the tough choices, there are consequences of those hard decisions as well — the loss of friendships, family, and independence.

“Could time really alter things so much? If so, the devil that every religion taught people to fear and loathe was simply the passage of time.”  (page 113 ARC)

Following thirty years of silence, the women are called upon once again to come together, but this time for a friend in America who needs them.  One of them is dying and wishes to seem them all together again, but she cannot travel and they must come to her in America.  Reuniting is never easy, especially when each of them holds guilt about not keeping in touch, secrets from the past, and prejudices born of their not-so-shared history.  The world that each of them found may not be the world that they dreamed they would create together, but it is a world in which they all live now and must learn to either accept or make moves to change for themselves and one another.

“Color.  She was obsessed with color.  There was the read of the Shiraz that Richard had opened the night before.  The burnt orange of the handcrafted cherry table in the hallway.  The glitter of a computer chip, the history of human intelligence shrunk into a capsule.  The muted gold of this leather couch she was napping on.  It made you greedy, intoxicated, made you want to open your mouth and bite into the richness of the world.  It made you want to never leave it, never miss out on a day of this party, this wild carnival ride.”  (page 234 ARC)

Thrity Umrigar not only shares a bit of India’s history with her readers, but she shares some of the religious tensions that pervade Indian society and how it can color the perceptions of people who were once considered friends.  The World We Found is stunning, emotional, and heated in the issues it tackles from religious fanaticism to moral ambiguity and the tenuous bonds between friends and family.  The ties between Laleh, Kavita, Armaiti, and Nishta are unbreakable no matter what tore them apart after college, but the ties between Iqbal and Adish are no less strong, though they seem more complicated by the roles expected of men in their respective religions and Indian society.  Book clubs would have a great deal to discuss after reading this novel and are likely to come away from the discussion with a new perspective on religion and friendship.

About the Author:

Thrity Umrigar is the author of three other novels—The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time—and the memoir First Darling of the Morning. A journalist for 17 years, she is the winner of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University and a 2006 finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. An associate professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, Umrigar lives in Cleveland.  Please visit her Website.

Also check out my review of The Weight of Heaven.  Enter to win a copy at GoodReads before Sept. 10.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2012, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

I’m Hosting Mailbox Monday #147

October 10, 2011 by

First, I would like to congratulate Emily on winning My God, What Have We Done? by Susan V. Weiss from the last Mailbox Monday giveaway.

Stay tuned for the next giveaway later on in the post, but for now, let’s get to this week’s post.

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch. Thanks to Amused by Booksfor hosting last month.

As host for this month, I have a couple giveaways planned, but mostly its about sharing books and the love of reading, so I hope in addition to leaving your post links in Mr. Linky that you’ll peek around Savvy Verse & Wit.

Kristi of The Story Siren continues to sponsor her In My Mailbox meme.

Both of these memes allow bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received this week:

1.  The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar from Harper for review in January.

2.  The Partnership by Philip Taubman from Harper for review in January.

3. A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood by Allen Braden from the library sale.

4. A Double Death on the Black Isle by A.D. Scott from Atria.

Please add your mailbox link to the Mr. Linky below:

Now, for the giveaway for the week. Only those with U.S. addresses are eligible for a paperback version of Where Am I Going by Michelle Cromer.

Here’s a brief synopsis:

Part travel guide, part memoir, Where Am I Going? Moving From Religious Tourist to Spiritual Explorer takes the reader on a journey to finding this meaning in the same way that Michelle Cromer did for herself, through seven stages that connect each of us to the deepest part of our souls. This inspiring story of Michelle’s own quest for meaning in her life is a welcome departure from the typical preachy self-help book. Always spiritual, sometimes dangerous, often exotic, her search–as told by this funny, complex woman is a powerful lesson for anyone who also finally asks the Big Questions and begins their own spiritual journey and quest for purpose.

Also check out this book trailer.  Please leave a comment if you are interested in this book.

Filed Under: giveaway, mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar

February 9, 2010 by

Thrity Umrigar’s The Weight of Heaven is a heavy with grief, emptiness, and struggle.  The Bentons (Ellie and Frank) lose their son, Benny, at age seven from meningococcus.  Ellie has liberal leanings politically and is a therapist to clients in Ann Arbor, Mich., while Frank is a proud, American business executive with residual issues of abandonment.  The loss of a child can be daunting for any family, and it is clear how grief of this magnitude can slowly rip a family apart.

“And now they were two.  Benny was gone.  What was left behind was mockery — objects and memories that mocked their earlier, smug happiness.  Benny was gone, an airplane lost behind the clouds, but he left behind a trail of smoke a mile long:”  (Page 2)

As this American couple struggles with the loss of their son, Ellie and Frank embark on a new life in India when Frank is transferred to a new HerbalSolutions factory.  The distance between them had gaped wide by this point, and both hope that the experience will help them repair their relationship and bring them closer to one another.  However, in rural India with its impoverished population, Frank and Ellie find that their values change and their current circumstances and grief dictate their reactions to one another, their servants, the local community, and other expatriates.

“Now she was trying to control the sway of her hips, trying hard to resist the tug of the pounding drums that were making her lose her inhibitions, making her want to dance manically, the way she used to in nightclubs when she was in her teens.  But that was the beauty of the dandiya dance — it celebrated the paradoxical joy of movement and restraint, of delirium within a structure.  This was not about individual expression but about community.”  (Page 220)

Readers will be absorbed by the local community and its traditions, the struggles of the Benton’s servants, and the stark beauty of India.  But what really makes this novel shine is the characters and their evolution from idealistic college students and young parents to a grief-stricken and dejected married couple in a foreign nation.  The tension between Frank and Ellie is personified in the dichotomous views each character reveals to the reader about the Indian community from the lax work environment and labor disputes at Frank’s factory to the deep-rooted sense of community and communion with nature shown through Ellie’s interactions with individuals at a local clinic.

The Weight of Heaven is more than a novel about grief; it is about how grief can distort perception and push people to make life-changing decisions that can broaden their horizons and transform them forever.  Umrigar’s prose is poetic and full of imagery that paints a vivid picture of India and its rural community and its city life in Mumbai/Bombay.  Class differences, the struggles of American expatriates, grief, death, and marital woes are explored deftly in this novel, and it is clearly one of the best novels of 2010.

To win 1 copy of The Weight of Heaven; this giveaway is international:

1.  Leave a comment about what nation you would move to or have moved to.
2.  Blog, Tweet, Facebook, etc. about the giveaway.

Deadline Feb. 19, 2010, 11:59PM EST

About the Author:

Thrity Umrigar is the author of three other novels—The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time—and the memoir First Darling of the Morning. A journalist for 17 years, she is the winner of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University and a 2006 finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. An associate professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, Umrigar lives in Cleveland.

This is my 9th book for the 2010 New Authors Challenge.

This is my 1st book for the 2010 South Asian Authors Challenge.

If you are interested in The Weight of Heaven, please check out the rest of the blog tour.

FTC Disclosure:  I received a free copy of The Weight of Heaven from the publisher and TLC Book Tours for review.  Clicking on title and image links will go to my Amazon Affiliate page; No purchase necessary, though appreciated to fund international giveaways.

Copyright of Serena M. Agusto-Cox at Savvy Verse & Wit 2007-2010. This is not original content, this content is owned and copyrighted by Serena M. Agusto-Cox
Filed Under: fiction, giveaway, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2010, review copy, reviews, South Asian Reading Challenge, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,