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When Henry, a middle-aged poet/professor, sees Margot on the street in NYC, he can't believe it. He's been searching for her since their traumatic breakup two decades ago. They met in college. He was on scholarship, and she was the daughter of one of the school's founders. When their affair was discovered, her father's money and clout gave them no choice but to part. He's now divorced. Her children are almost grown, and her marriage was of convenience and still is. Chapters toggle between 1991 and 2012. Lots of pain and thwarted dreams, but a moving and surprising denouement. Whew!
Subtitled: The Path to a Better Way of Death. I'm sure I must have read this when it came out in 2013 but got reacquainted with it recently when I was looking for a CD to listen to on my commute. I found myself utterly gripped by its message, which is still so pertinent. The author’s father lived to a ripe old, miserable age when everything started to go but his pacemaker kept on ticking. Her mother almost lost her mind with the weight of caregiving, and Katy flew back and forth from SF to the East Coast, trying to help. The author's candor is breathtaking, and her analysis of why the system is so skewed toward preserving life even if it's run its course is trenchant. There's been some headway these days, but it's still a formidable challenge to try to orchestrate the death we'd want for ourselves: timely and whenever possible, peaceful. Insightful and sobering.
Old Sybil has been writing letters since childhood. We make her acquaintance through said correspondence: with her brother in Paris; her best friend Rosalie; an erstwhile colleague, James, from her old law practice, and his eccentric, troubled young son, Harry. She starts an extensive exchange with Bilal, a customer representative with the DNA firm she contacts about a long-lost relative she just discovered which provides suspense. She writes “real life” authors like Ann Patchett with appreciation for their work and sometimes even gets responses. She wrangles with the college where she intends to continue auditing classes, but a new director says the policy has changed. She also starts an extensive exchange with Bilal, a customer representative with the DNA firm she contacts about a long-lost relative she just discovered which provides suspense. At first Sybil seems starchy, but her inquiring mind, sense of justice, and loyalty come shining through, and I felt honored to peek over her shoulder and see how much an old-fashioned letter can convey.
Sagar, who loves rivers (especially the Ganges), gets a job decommissioning a dam in Montana where he and his new wife, Janavi, relocate from India. Their marriage was hastily arranged on behalf of Janavi’s sister Rajni who had been betrothed to Sagar but was in love with someone else. The relationship is very strained, exacerbated by being plunked down in an alien culture, and without papers, Janavi can’t get a job. The town’s white population is against the dam removal, but the local Native Americans want the river to run free again. Sagar gets to know a native archeologist, Renny, who has been excavating the burial ground next to the river. When her body is discovered in the river, the project is halted and Sagar, the fall guy, is fired. It’s a dirty scheme, but Janavi is determined to uncover it, and the couple finally draw together. The title hints at considerable irony throughout the story: brown people who are labeled as Indians getting the short end of the stick. Rao also brings in historical vignettes to flesh out the conflict’s context. An absorbing read.
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