Manhattan Music

In this postcolonial tale set in New York in the 1990s, 30-something Sandhya Rosenblum finds herself haunted by memories of a dead sweetheart in her native India, drifting apart from her Jewish-American husband and searching for solace with her Egyptian lover. Meanwhile, U.S.-born Draupadi Dinkins (of Indian, African, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and European descent) struggles with her own demons and losses, and forges a life in performance art. The immigrant characters in Alexander's novel adapt to American life but feel stretched thin, as if they should be in two places at once. One week they're rushing halfway across the globe to the sickbed of an elderly parent; the next, stumbling around jet-lagged in New Jersey. Accordingly, Manhattan Music is not an easy or serenely melodic book: frequent changes of focus, place, time, voice and style reinforce the themes of disorientation and multiculturalism. But while the cutting creates a kaleidoscopic feeling, it also distances the reader from the characters and renders the tale choppy. Nonetheless, Alexander, the author of both fiction (Nampally Road) and non- (The Shock of Arrival), has produced another sophisticated novel reflecting the psychological realities of people coping with hyphenated identities, divided loyalties, fragmented dreams. (Mar.)