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Who’s the father of Maya’s child? Bhima surprisingly doesn’t work that out till the end of the book. The hard, painful realities of Bhima’s life are narrated with honest indignation, although it’s the polemic of the sentimental activist that emerges, not an artist’s instinctive intelligence of suffering. With Sara, Umrigar is more successful, though she relies heavily on the props that, by now, stereotype the imaginary Parsi homeland of expat literature. The prose cries out for editorial rescue. There are no epiphanies. Realism is perhaps the most difficult fiction to attempt—unless you’ve been there, done that. Umrigar hasn’t.
