March 31, 2014
Chaudhuri left Bangladesh when she was 18, intent upon pursuing her education in the U.S., and the reader follows willingly. Chaudhuri’s deeply intimate and skillfully drawn memoir delves into her search for finding her place in the world—whether she’s dissecting her not so happy childhood in Bangladesh; attempting to understand God, play music, learn classical Indian dance; or analyzing her unglamorous life in an American city “whose spirit bears no buoyancy.” Chaudhuri presents searing portraits of her cool and distant mother and father and their disappointing reactions to her attempts to garner their affections. She charts the dissolution of her misguided first marriage and bittersweet return to Dhaka, the city of her childhood and her family. “Though we both know that we will never live in the Big House as a family, the mere fact that it is there, solid space that encases the vision of a beloved home, provides more comfort than I had ever admitted.”
April 1, 2014
An essayist writes about how she tried to flee an oppressive home life only to find herself face to face with the demons she thought she had left behind. Piety reigned supreme in Chaudhuri's childhood home. Joy "was like a glimmer of sunshine that slip[ped] in through the cracks...but never quite settle[d]," and shame lurked in every corner. The author struggled to reconcile her family's faith with her own emerging beliefs and desires. She learned about sexuality covertly, through the pornographic pictures a neighbor boy showed her and the furtive caresses she exchanged with a servant girl--and later, adolescent males equally hungry for sensual experience. At the same time, Chaudhuri bore witness to the soul-crushing frustrations of her parents. A promising singer, her mother found her dreams thwarted by marriage and teachers bent on breaking her spirit. Her father, a one-time top executive, fell from grace and never again regained his former professional status. Eager to step out of the shadows that religion, her parents' failures and demands for academic perfection cast upon her, Chaudhuri applied to college in the United States. When she left Bangladesh to attend university in Massachusetts, she vowed never to "get attached to the idea of home," as had her parents, opting instead for the freedom of a life that would "constantly keep her on the move." She fell in love with Yameen, a fellow Muslim expatriate born in Tanzania. Rather than find comfort in each other and their mutual alienation, both descended into an isolated world defined by half-truths, infidelity, alcohol and abuse. An affair with a deeply religious American man broke the hold both Yameen and the past had over Chaudhuri. Relieved of the twin burdens of shame and grief, she learned to let go of self-punishing behaviors and embrace imperfection--in herself, her parents and her own tangled history--with love. Lyrical and heartfelt.
COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from April 15, 2014
How much can we ever know about those we're closest to? In this exquisite memoir, Chaudhuri explores her pastboth growing up in Bangladesh and her new life in New Englandwith great insight and empathy for those close to her. Her distant and fiercely religious father is felt mostly through his absence in their daily lives, while her mother mourns the glittering life of stardom she feels her singing talents should have brought her. The young Maria responds to her uncertainty and unhappiness by trying desperately to create order, acting out in numerous small ways. As she grows, she is stifled in her own singing aspirations, and her insecurities lead her to an unhappy marriage. Her recollections thrum with emotion, and her depictions of those in this complex web of relationships are nuanced and well balanced. Deep currents of family and home, and the meaning of those essential words, flow through every scene. Chaudhuri has created a contemplative examination of how her origins influenced the person she grew to be, and how sometimes it's only possible to know someone by letting them go.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)