The Museum of failures, by Thrity Umrigar

 

Remy Wadia refers to India as the Museum of Failures based on the unhappiness he felt growing up there with a volatile mother and a loving father. Remy has travelled to India to arrange an adoption, but when he gets there he finds that his widowed mother has been in the hospital and the caretakers he arranged for her have neglected her due to her bad treatment of them. Remy extends his stay in India to care for his mother although he is disappointed that the adoption falls through. Remy's mother eventually returns home and while caring for her, Remy finds a picture that reveals a long lost secret: he had an older brother that he never knew about. Slowly the story comes out about how the child was born with developmental disabilities, and Remy's father institutionalized him without consulting Remy's mother, something she never forgave him for. This explains all of Remy's mother's angry and abusive behavior over the years, and Remy begins to see his mother in a new light. I enjoyed this story, and the writing is very good. The only qualms I have about the book is how everything resolves itself in the end, and everyone is forgiven. I don't believe that such deep trauma and abuse could be worked through and forgiven so quickly, and the final surprise of the book is just a little too neat and convenient for me. It stretches credulity and left me reeling a bit. 

Chitra demands to go home, by Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay

 

I enjoyed this short novel about a woman who has been put into a senior care facility in the U.S. by her sons after she suffered a stroke and didn’t progress (or cooperate) with her physical therapy plan. Chitra thinks her sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren should care for her as repayment for all she did for them growing up, but her self-centeredness and lack of empathy for their circumstances make them unwilling to keep her at home. She desperately wants to go home to India, but they sell the family home over her objections. Most of the book concerns her highly emotional interactions with them as well as other members and staff of the care facility. In spite of her bad behavior, another woman befriends her, but Chitra doesn’t let up on her plan to leave.  I found myself simultaneously sympathizing with Chitra, who has lost her husband and a daughter, and the rest of her family who clearly are struggling with their own challenges.