Bitter Sweets
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
With this spellbinding first novel about the destructive lies three immigrant generations of a Pakistani/Bangladeshi family tell each other, Roopa Farooki adds a fresh new voice to the company of Zadie Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Arudhati Roy.
Henna Rub is a precocious teenager whose wheeler-dealer father never misses a business opportunity and whose sumptuous Calcutta marriage to wealthy romantic Ricky-Rashid Karim is achieved by an audacious network of lies. Ricky will learn the truth about his seductive bride, but the way is already paved for a future of double lives and deception--family traits that will filter naturally through the generations, forming an instinctive and unspoken tradition. Even as a child, their daughter Shona, herself conceived on a lie and born in a liar's house, finds telling fibs as easy as ABC. But years later, living above a sweatshop in South London's Tooting Bec, it is Shona who is forced to discover unspeakable truths about her loved ones and come to terms with what superficially holds her family together--and also keeps them apart--across geographical, emotional and cultural distance.
Roopa Farooki has crafted an intelligent, engrossing and emotionally powerful Indian family saga that will stay with you long after you've read the last page.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This rollicking debut from former London ad exec Farooki weaves "an audacious network of lies as elaborate and brazen as the golden embroidery on scarlet wedding sari." Henna, an illiterate 13-year-old Calcutta shopkeeper's daughter, is passed off as the educated 17-year-old daughter of a successful businessman in order to marry her into one of the city's best families. The lie reverberates deliciously through three generations of Henna's family: Farooki's witty narrative winds its way over some 50 years, moving Henna, husband Rashid ("Ricky") and daughter Shona from Calcutta to Bangladesh, Pakistan and London, where Shona elopes and raises her twin boys above a confectioner's shop. Unflinching insights into Henna and others are well done, and allusions to literature and philosophy buoy them up. Farooki pulls off a lightly spun epic tale with effortless charm and more than enough delightful twists to keep pages turning. Even the characters' most unexpected and disastrous choices seem somehow inevitable, and one is quickly resigned to rooting for the wily woman at the center.
Customer Reviews
More Roopa please
I downloaded the sample almost a year ago, and read a few pages and forgot all about it. I read (half life) another book by this author, loved it and decided to give this one another try. It took a couple of chapters, then got HOOKED. My favorite character is Puppy.....
Loved it!!!
Absolutely loved this book. None stop read. Thank you for such an awesome read.