Fasting Feasting

An undeniable genius. Washington Post Book WorldPlain, unmarriageable Uma has failed to outgrow her childhood home. Overprotectedand starved for a life, she is surrounded and smothered by her overbearing parents,successful sister Aruna, who has outpaced her by pulling off a good marriage , and Arun,the family s disappointment of a son. Eccentric aunts and cousins complete the scene ofher claustrophobic existence, with its bitter-sweet treats of puri-alu and barfi s, samosasand fritters; and tragedies, big and small. Across the world in Massachusetts, where Arunhas gone as a student, family life in an American suburb is bewilderingly different. ThePattons, who he lives with, appear strange and terrible to a young Indian, far from home.The women don t appear to cook at all, though they stuff their shopping carts till theyrun over; the men barbecue huge hunks of meat; their daughter binges on innumerablecandy bars. Increasingly, Mrs Patton is desperate to be a vegetarian, like Arun. But whatArun wants most is to be invisible. Moving from the heated hub of a traditional Indianhousehold to the cooler centre of an American one, Fasting, Feasting is a powerfulexploration of hunger and plenty, in what is one of Anita Desai s most socially acutenovels. An ambitious, successful and disturbing novel. The Times