In the opening scene, main character Tita begins crying when her mother is chopping onions, and she is born on a tide of tears that, upon evaporating, leaves enough salt to fill a ten-pound sack. That is when you realize that you are reading a fairy tale, albeit one in which each chapter is centered around a specific recipe, and thus you forgive the one-dimensional wicked mother, the uncaring sister, the frankly unlikeable love interest, Tita’s questionable life choices, and the magical cooking in which every dish transmits the emotion of the cook to the diner (and there are oh so many emotions). I liked how cooking framed the story and many of the scenes were quite sweet, but in general so many of the characters’ decisions were so ridiculous and eye-rolling that it was hard for me to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story completely.
Tag: genre-magical realism
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, by Jamil Jan Kochai
This is a series of interrelated short stories, and as the collection title promises, they are haunting. The main set of characters is a family of Afghan refugees who have settled (with varying degrees of success) in California, and how they are haunted by the trauma of the war that drove them from their home. The stories are written with a wide variety of styles and structures, some more approachable than others; however, they hang together incredibly well as a collection and together illustrate many dimensions of the pain and loss felt by this family. Incredibly well done.
Gold Diggers, by Sanjena Sathian
This was a really ambitious, multi-dimensional coming-of-age story. Narrator Neal (Neeraj) Narayan is growing up in the pressure-cooker environment of a diaspora community of competitive, striving immigrant families. He knows he should have been aiming for Harvard admission, but instead finds himself mostly aiming himself at the girl next door; the magical realism element kicks in surprisingly late (that of literally distilling parental ambitions for their children), but is worked in really well. Then the narration hops forward to present day, where Neal gets to follow up with a bunch of the kids and see where they ended up; after a bit of meandering, the book abruptly veers into a fast-moving heist story. I found the second half to be weaker and less focused than the first half, but still an enjoyable read; mostly I really liked how the portrait of the contemporary immigrant’s focus on wealth via American Dream was set against the much more literal quest embodied in the historical California gold rush.
On Fragile Waves, by E. Lily Yu
I had gotten on the wait list for this a while back and had completely forgotten what it was about, so it was a poignant surprise to find myself reading a book about Afghan refugees during the crisis in Kabul. Firuzeh and her family suffer terror, loss, and indignity trying to find asylum in Australia. Yu does an amazing job depicting their heartbreaking trials and small victories, their desperate love and petty cruelties, and reaches out to also occasionally share the viewpoints of those around them, with the emotions hinted at in conversation instead of sketched outright. I also liked the magical realism aspect, how Firuzeh’s losses turned into things that literally haunted her, but not in ways that you’d expect. Really beautiful book.