Saturday 12 December 2009

"The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai

This book won the Booker in 2006 and was shortlisted for the 2007 Women's Prize for fiction.

Sai lives with her grandfather, a retired judge, and his dog, Mutt, on a decaying estate north of Darjeeling near the Nepal border. Their cook mourns his son, Biju, who is living in New York. Some Nepali freedom fighters ("Gorkhaland for the Gorkhas") raid the house and take the judge's ancient hunting guns. Sai's secret boyfriend, her maths and science tutor, who is Nepali, doesn't turn up for their lesson...

The story starts to explain the back story, how the judge and Sai came to be living their, Sai's relationships with her tutor and the others in the village: gay Uncle Potty, Father Booty, sisters Lola and Noni. Intercut are scenes from the cook's son's life in the Big Apple as an illegal immigrant and impoverished restaurant worker. Slowly (and I found it very slow indeed) the story meanders back to the present day.

Suddenly the violence flares up and life will never be the same again...

Deftly written, with subtle observations building portraits of the characters, but in the middle bit I got extremely bogged down and found myself not caring about the characters. But the final third suddenly becomes a different book: the cosy gentility of life is overthrown and ugly chaos reigns.




This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

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