Farida Cooper is too shocked by her husband's treachery even to talk about it, but in hiding her shame succeeds only in denying the damage to herself and making casualties of others, among them an infatuated 17-year-old boy. Farida is vivacious, intelligent, beautiful, rich, spoiled, and selfish, but her life is hardly as rosy as it appears. Her father's affairs render her mother frigid. Her saving grace is her Kaki with whom she lives after her sixth birthday, stifling emotions which erupt years later in a series of disastrous choices. Her story shuttles between Bombay and Chicago, spanning the years from WWII to the 1980s, illuminating themes of love and marriage, feminism and friendship, art and academia.
An unhurried but immersive tale of ambition and love. -Kirkus Reviews.
A splendid foray into the initiation rites of the modern fearless woman ... brimful of erudition, some age-old wisdoms and a more recent one that everyone seems to have forgotten: the meaning of gender equality. -Tara Sahgal, India Today.
A remarkable feat ... an erudite and literary novel which is also a potboiler. -Bapsi Sidhwa, Fezana Journal.
A complex tapestry of marriage, love and betrayal. -Prasenjit Choudhury, Deccan Herald.
A deliberate and skilful construction of a well-paced and cadenced narrative. -Sundeep Sen, The Hindu.
Extremely readable. -Firdaus Gandavia, Parsiana.
Delightful and entertaining. -Gopali Bandyopadhyay, 8th Day, .
