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.