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Apr 23, 2014maipenrai rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
*** stars. Growing up in Calcutta, born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead of them. It is the 1960s, and Udayan--charismatic and impulsive--finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty: he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother's political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America. When Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family's home, he comes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind, including those in the heart of his brother's wife. **** I am a fan of Ms. Lahiri and loved "The Interpreter of Maladies" for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. "Interpreter" is a set of stories, each one of which captured my heart. For some reason I could not bond as well with the characters in this novel. The brothers' parents are very traditional in their beliefs and do not understand either son or their daughter-in-law. Udayan and his bride have a violent history which haunts Guari throughout her life. Subhash is a good man, but he never asks for or demands the love and respect he and his daughter deserve. He is always a good boy / a good son. I liked his daughter best. She makes her choices without second guessing and tells her mother how unacceptable her behavior was. I wish her father could have done the same.