Mukherjee’s stories of people struggling to move across the planet are intimate, gritty, and unpredictable. We rarely find genuine resolution, left in uncertainty or failure; but this, too, is the experience.
Hurston’s novel hurts as we read through the fateful choices characters make within a universe full of intent or wholly indifferent.
Set aside your expectations for the story of a young woman working the oil sands of Canada; this is about people, both comic and poignant.
A structure of overlapping stories in time and relationships unpacks a cacophony of messages, none cleanly suited to be called “justice” or “faith” or “love.”
Though recommended by Thomas Mann (high praise), the Priest version is an earlier English translation and makes some choices that are perhaps problematic.
Each of our lives intersects and encapsulates; we sublimate and revise our guilts; so too does this novel work upon us, compelling us to peel back and see up close, to admit, to understand.Â
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