The Heart Is a Shifting Sea

Starred review from October 9, 2017
Journalist Flock invites readers into the homes, lives, and marriages of three couples—one Marwari Hindu, one Sunni Muslim, and one Tamil Brahmin Hindu—living in Mumbai in this multifaceted portrait of love and marriage in modern India. Layered with history and glimpses of the varied cultures compressed into one vivacious city, the book pays as much attention to the lives of its subjects as it does to that which binds them together: the rituals of courtship and intricacies of marriage law, religious observances and festivals, and changing conventions that are seeing more couples choosing to live apart from their families and more women choosing to work outside of the home. Flock finds people trying to find happiness within the slipknot of tradition, longing for film-style romance within their arranged marriages, and searching peace with their lives inside a city and a country undergoing rapid population growth, Western influence, and rising far-right sentiment. There’s Ashok and Parvati, who get to know one another while planning a wedding (their courtship was arranged by their parents using an online matchmaking service); Shazhad and Sabeena, whose failure to conceive leads them to a more liberal practice of Islam (Sunni law doesn’t recognize adoption); and Maya and Veer, career-oriented individuals who deal with infidelity and Maya’s need for independence. Flock approaches the histories, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of her middle- and upper-middle-class couples as a reporter, not a storyteller, and the book is better for it, steering clear of caricature and sentiment, and letting each of her subjects emerge in the details of his or her own circumstances. Ostensibly a study of marriage as experienced by the people in it, Flock’s book also provides a vivid portrait of a nation in transition, through the lives and desires of its most progressive city’s residents.

December 1, 2017
Intimate portraits of three marriages reveal family life in Mumbai.Flock, a reporter for PBS NewsHour and former investigative reporter for Forbes India Magazine, makes her literary debut with an absorbing, candid look at three couples as they confront life in a changing India. While families prefer marriages to be arranged, young couples imbibe notions about love and romance from Bollywood movies. One young husband worries about not having a car: in films, he reflects, "men took women out on long drives in their car or on their motorcycle. It was how they fell in love." Parents hire matchmakers, while single men and women try to find true love from dating sites and events. Fathers exert draconian control over daughters who yearn for autonomy. Flock lived with the couples for a while, observing their interactions; her journalistic style pays off. One couple shared their online chats with her; others kept in touch by email for nearly a decade. Each marriage faced problems. For Veer and Maya, their relationship was fraught from the beginning because Veer had been in love with another woman, who rejected him; and Maya, frustrated and volatile--and, it emerges, a victim of sexual abuse as a child--had attempted suicide. Her restlessness and Veer's obsession with work strained their marriage. Maya considered divorce, but her reasons for unhappiness did not come under the stipulations of the Hindu Marriage Act; instead, she has affairs. Shahzad and Sabeena faced Shahzad's sterility; in a culture that expects marriages to grow into families, Shahzad felt desperate to prove his manhood, consulting medical doctors as well as fortunetellers, herbalists, and quacks. Ashok and Parvati, both Tamil Brahmins, felt pressure to marry within their caste and religion, although Parvati had been in love with a Christian man, inciting her father's rage, and Ashok had not yet found a companion. Brought together by a matchmaking site and affirmed by astrologers, they agreed to marry after meeting in person only briefly.An eye-opening exploration of how tradition and star-studded dreams shape love in modern India.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2018

Reporter Flock creates an intimate portrait of three marriages in her first book. Following two Hindu couples and a Muslim couple living in India's largest city, Mumbai, for more than a decade, Flock captures both the life-changing events and the daily minutiae that make up romantic and domestic partnerships. Because Flock goes deep, rather than broad, in exploring the various customs of marriage and parenthood in India, she makes readers feel as though they are peering through a window into these couples' lives. Arranged marriages, anxieties over sex, and struggles with fertility are all on display here; Flock writes about these sensitive topics with generosity and empathy in this beautifully rendered, intricate, and human exploration of love and marriage in Mumbai. VERDICT All readers interested in Southeast Asian culture, as well as scholars of anthropology, sociology, and other social sciences will be fascinated with this accessible account.--Jennifer Stout, Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Lib., Richmond

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.