Ode to Broken Things

In Mukherjee’s contemporary political novel, colonialism threatens a family. Jay Ghosh, professor of biotechnology and a Malaysian living in Boston, returns home after 30 years to pay back debts to his mentor, Colonel S, and to the family of his lost love, Shanti. His presence disturbs Shanti’s daughter, Agni, and her grandmother, Shapna, as do the street protests of ethnic Indians, “immigrants” who have lived in Malaysia for decades. Worse, Colonel S, an expert in explosives, plans to take matters into his own hands. Mukherjee imbues her family drama with the crossbred history of intertwined communities who celebrate one another’s holidays even as they carp about one another’s failings. Jay and Agni, the “broken things,” approach healing through their buried history “until the river floods and the silt uncovers what should remain hidden.” (May)