Fault Lines

February 28, 2000
The reminiscences of this Indian-born poet and novelist ( Nampally Road ) are both evocative and moving, and she presents them in a circular yet completely logical fashion; often they are connected more through theme or meaning than chronology. As she examines issues of identity and a sense of displacement in both her own life and those of her children, her most perceptive moments come in an examination of life in New York, ``the great island city where the poor cry out of tunnels.'' There her son answers a doorman's question--``What are you?''--by claiming to be a Jedi knight, and her daughter's drawing of her family is confused by a preschool teacher who seems not to know the difference between Indian and Native American. Alexander revels in metaphors that align perfectly with their particular subjects; recognition of the way her marriage validates her in the eyes of her family cuts ``like a metallic piece in a too-tight brassiere,'' and ethnicity is ``a violence from within that resists . . . fracturing.'' Although Alexander has lived in many places, including the Sudan and England, and done many things, she finds common ground in her expressive language.