Book Review: The Weight of Heaven- Thrity Umrigar

This is the fourth novel written by Thrity Umrigar. The story involves the loss of a child by an American couple, who subsequently move to India to work at a Multinational corporation in a small town, which they see as a fresh start to their marriage,a way to get over their tragic past. Once they get to India it is mainly a train wreck waiting to happen, as you read the story unfold, one learns about their past lives, their current lives and till eventually the future is here and the train wreck happens. I found the book to be unimaginative and exceedingly unconvincing.

The author is a fantastically talented writer who unfortunately seems to never get beyond the most basic of stories and the most banal cliches. There are clearly a lot of emotions in this book, some of which are indeed believable, however adding some complexity to the characters would perhaps have added to their depth. The characters are very black and white and exceedingly stereotypical. The book deals with the issues of perceived American Imperialism, the impact of multinational corporation on small towns. That said it does not explore any of these issues in a seemingly comprehensive, unbiased way and uses the cliches to add to the predictability of the characters and the story line.

I have read most of the books written by Thrity Umrigar including her memoir First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood (P.S.), but I have been exceedingly disappointed in the lack of dimensionality to the last few novels written by her and this current one is no exception. I highly recommend reading Bombay Time: A Novel, that is a great piece of work by her. On a personal note, I did write to her after I read that book to tell her I had enjoyed it a lot and she wrote back to me a non-form e-mail, which I think says a lot about the author.