The Inheritance of Loss

Starred review from October 24, 2005
This stunning second novel from Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
) is set in mid-1980s India, on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state. Jemubhai Popatlal, a retired Cambridge-educated judge, lives in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas, with his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook. The makeshift family's neighbors include a coterie of Anglophiles who might be savvy readers of V.S. Naipaul but who are, perhaps, less aware of how fragile their own social standing is—at least until a surge of unrest disturbs the region. Jemubhai, with his hunting rifles and English biscuits, becomes an obvious target. Besides threatening their very lives, the revolution also stymies the fledgling romance between 16-year-old Sai and her Nepalese tutor, Gyan. The cook's son, Biju, meanwhile, lives miserably as an illegal alien in New York. All of these characters struggle with their cultural identity and the forces of modernization while trying to maintain their emotional connection to one another. In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a "better life," when one person's wealth means another's poverty. Agent, Michael Carlisle.

This exceptional book is read with such wisdom and ability that the narrative becomes an epic poem that fills the listener's senses with the sounds, the smells, and the most minute details of India. High in the Himalayas lives the Judge with his granddaughter, his cook, and his dog, Mutt. The story of their lives and the lives of all around them, both past and present, creates a tapestry of delight and despair. Whether she is speaking as a Nepalese agitator, a refined, retired gentlewoman, a New York drunk, or an Indian girl who only speaks English, Meera Simhan's precision of accent, emotion, and timing adds to the perfection that is this novel. The language is so lush and the plot so engrossing that the listener will be thinking about different moments in the novel for months after hearing it. B.H.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine