Red Earth and Pouring Rain

Starred review from July 31, 1995
Setting 18th- and 19th-century Mogul India against the open highways of contemporary America and fusing Indian myth, Hindu gods, magic and mundane reality, this intricate first novel is a magnificent epic that welds the exfoliating storytelling style of A Thousand and One Nights to modernist fictional technique. Abhay, an Indian college student studying in the U.S. but home on vacation in Bombay, shoots a scavenging monkey; the dying creature reveals itself to be the reincarnation of Sanjay Parasher, a fiery, iconoclastic 19th-century poet and freedom-fighter against British rule. To remain alive, the monkey strikes a deal with the gods: he must keep Abhay's family entertained each day by telling stories of his former lives. Around this fanciful premise, Indian novelist Chandra has built a powerful, moving saga that explores colonialism, death and suffering, ephemeral pleasure and the search for the meaning of life. Through the monkey's tales, we learn of Sanjay's lethal estrangement from his best friend, Sikander, an Anglo-Indian warrior who serves the British; of the suicide of Sikander's mother, Janvi, who throws herself on a funeral pyre after her English husband gives away their daughters to missionaries; of Sanjay's avenging showdown in London with Dr. Paul Sarthey, renowned orientalist and murderous imperialist. Abhay also narrates his own sprawling tale about his drive across the U.S. with two alienated fellow students, providing a dramatic contrast between America's throwaway pop culture and India's ancient, venerated ways, bound up with the concepts of dharma (right conduct), karma and reincarnation. This is an astonishing and brilliant debut.

April 1, 1995
In this debut, an example of magical realism with an Asian American twist, a monkey shot by a young man in Bombay turns out to be the latest reincarnation of a 17th-century poet and adventurer. The gods promise to spare the monkey's life if he tells a story, and his stirring tale of warriors and poets blends with the young man's account of three college students making their way across America.

July 1, 1995
This is an ambitiously complex first novel about mythmaking and our hunger for stories. It's also an epic, embracing impressionistic interpretations of the history of India as well as a contemporary road trip across America. Abhay, home in India after attending college in California, is the link between these worlds. Restless and alienated, he shoots and seriously wounds a pesky monkey, then gets quite a shock when he discovers that the creature has the heart and mind of a poet named Sanjay, an old soul who has eluded death many times. A triumvirate of deities arrive on the scene, and a bargain is struck: Sanjay will stay alive only if he can entertain an audience with his stories. And so Sanjay becomes a Scheherazade and Chandra's novel an Indian "One Thousand and One Nights." Sanjay's colorful tales are steeped in the passions and fears aroused by love, war, and the quest for wisdom. When he grows weary, Abhay takes up the thread. As each story leads to another, Chandra's multifaceted narrative spins and whirls as hectically and alluringly as a kaleidoscope, leaving us a bit dazed if impressed. ((Reviewed July 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)