The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

Sara recommended this book to me and I really enjoyed it.

I held off on reading it for a while because I felt like I had read a lot about India lately. Turns out I had only read two books on India last year: Groom to Have Been and Inheritance of Loss. Over the past few years, I've read In Between World of Vikram Lall, Interpreter of Maladies, Namesake, God of Small Things, and A Fine Balance. Which, for me, is not a disproportionate number of books on a certain topic - but I guess I find these pieces about India have strong descriptions that stick in my head so I don't like to confuse the books by reading them too close together.

In any case, this one was great too. It was about two women with a long history together - one of them (Bhima) is the other one's (Sera) servant. While by our standards, Bhima is treated poorly by Sera - forced to sit on the floor and use separate drinking cups - within the culture depicted in the book Sera treats her well. Secrets in both Sera and Bhima's lives are slowly revealed throughout the book, which continually changed my perceptions of the characters. The story also follows parts of the lives of Sera's daughter and her husband, and Bhima's granddaughter.

The plot held my attention, the characters were well-developed and multi-dimensional, and the culture is described almost in a detached journalistic way, devoid of the typical Western judgement found in some foreign-set stories. I have very little criticism of this book.

Blogger's Dilemma

I've been slow in blogging lately because I am reading Omnivore's Dilemma with Laura as the sole members of an email book club we've started. It means that some of my 'reading time' is spent on that book so less is spent on whatever else I'm reading.

So far it's been a good experience. It's not as good as an in-person book club, but I'm getting far more out of the book than if I read it alone. Coincedentally, Webster is reading In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan's other book, so we have been talking about his themes at home lately as well.

I'll review the book and the experience once we're done.

Reading multiple books at a time is something I used to do a lot when I was younger. I like it because it makes the length of time it takes to read each book longer and I think that makes them stay with me more. It also means I am not ever picking up a book I'm not in the mood for.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World by Lucette Lagnado

I had been out of touch with Deena for a while, but we emailed recently and she recommended this book, which she had liked because of her interest in genealogy. Having just finished a fictional account of a Jewish family's escape from post-revolutionary Iran, I thought it would be a good contrast to read some non-fiction on a Jewish family's leaving Egypt. Coincidentally, I found myself reading this just weeks before Passover, which added to my interest in the story.

This book follows a family who lives in Cairo as upper-class Jews. Narrated by the family's youngest child, a daughter, the first half of the book is about their family history and the early years of the parents' marriage, not particularly happy. The political situation in Egypt in the 1960's forces many Jews to consider leaving the country, and the Lagnados eventually flee to France and then ultimately Brooklyn. The family's story is not a particularly happy one, and the 'man in the white sharkskin suit', Lucette's father, deteriorates from debonair regular on the Cairo club circuit to infirm old man forever mourning his home country.

I enjoyed reading the book, though, because it was a crisp depiction of what it is like to leave a home country under duress. I had never really understood the dimensions of that choice as well as I did after reading this book. While Lucette is young enough to eventually adjust to that change, her father never really recovers. I had to glance at the title several times during reading this book to remind myself that the story is really about him, not her.

PS - Turns out that my mother has an unusual connection to this book that I only learned about half way through - her mother was treated by the same doctor at Sloan-Kettering as Lucette was, back in the 1960's. It is a small, small, small world.