A Fine Balance

It is 1975 in an unnamed tumultuous Indian city by the sea. Four people--a determined widow with a precarious sewing business, a young student who boards with the widow, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--are thrust together. As they struggle to survive, they reveal a depth of spirit that belies their mistreatment as low-caste citizens. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction, a Booker Prize finalist, and an Oprah Book Club selection, A Fine Balance has a Dickensian mix of compassion and narrative sweep. John Lee's resonant Scottish-tinged voice carries the listener safely through the violent parts of the story while warmly celebrating the happy parts. His Indian accents color the characters beautifully. And--difficult for a male reader--even his women sound believable. A masterful performance. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 1, 1996
The setting of Mistry's quietly magnificent second novel (after the acclaimed Such a Long Journey) is India in 1975-76, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, defying a court order calling for her resignation, declares a state of emergency and imprisons the parliamentary opposition as well as thousands of students, teachers, trade unionists and journalists. These events, along with the government's forced sterilization campaign, serve as backdrop for an intricate tale of four ordinary people struggling to survive. Naive college student Maneck Kohlah, whose parents' general store is failing, rents a room in the house of Dina Dalal, a 40-ish widowed seamstress. Dina acquires two additional boarders: hapless but enterprising itinerant tailor Ishvar Darji and his nephew Omprakash, whose father, a village untouchable, was murdered as punishment for crossing caste boundaries. With great empathy and wit, the Bombay-born, Toronto-based Mistry evokes the daily heroism of India's working poor, who must cope with corruption, social anarchy and bureaucratic absurdities. Though the sprawling, chatty narrative risks becoming as unwieldy as the lives it so vibrantly depicts, Mistry combines an openness to India's infinite sensory detail with a Dickensian rendering of the effects of poverty, caste, envy, superstition,corruption and bigotry. His vast, wonderfully precise canvas poses, but cannot answer, the riddle of how to transform a corrupt, ailing society into a healthy one.

Set in 1970s India, this engrossing story captures the brutal social policies of Indira Gandhi's government, illustrating their often tragic effects on the lives of four central characters. The abridged narration of this novel, a Booker Prize finalist, is skillfully handled by Madhur Jaffrey. Jaffrey's straightforward style of reading--sympathetic but not sentimental--serves the material well: So much sorrow befalls the story's likable characters that an overly absorbed narrator could easily tip its "fine balance" from hope to inconsolable despair. Through subtle shifts in tone and accent, Jaffrey conveys a wealth of information about different characters' personalities and stations in life. An outstanding performance. J.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine