The Inheritance of Loss
Since I'll soon be teaching The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai's Man Booker Prize-winning, and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel, I probably shouldn't review it in detail. I can affirm, however, that I will be reading her other novel (I strongly approve of novelists who turn out only one book per decade, which makes it possible to keep up), and that I recommend this one.
I do have some quibbles, because it begins as a frequently lyrical description of life in West Bengal (with one subplot taking place in New York City) but the last hundred pages or so read more like an Evelyn Waugh satiric novel than what I thought I had been reading earlier.
Up to the point where the tone changed, I was seriously wondering if this book is going to be a "classic." It would not surprise me if this book stayed in print for a very long time. I can see why it won prizes. I'm looking forward to seeing what the students think of it. And I'm expecting that this won't be the last time I teach it.
If you haven't read a contemporary novel from India lately, this would be a good one to try.
CBIP: Life of the Empress Josephine, anonymous (Cecil B. Hartley?)
The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twenty-ninth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed.
The Monitor Boys, John V. Quarstein
The Complete Illustrated History of the Aztec & Maya, Charles Phillips