Author: Stephen Alter
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780143063742
Description
Hill stations are not as sleepy and gtranquil as they might seem. You will discover forbidden love and intrigue in the most unlikely places. Kipking's Mrs. Hawksbee and her Simla crowd would have approved.
The friendship between Renuka, a Bengali poet, and Rachel, an American missionary, lies at the heart of this novel. Two women from entirely different backgrounds, they share a bond that overcomes the barriers of nationality, race and religion.
Both are exiled to a hill station, which is populated with provincial and prudish memsahibs, who adjust their recipes to compensate for the altitude and substitute ingredients from home. While Rachel’s husband works at a psychiatric hospital in the plains, in Ranchi, she looks after their sons who attend a mission school in the hills. While editing a cookbook, Rachel begins to realize the contradictions within her community. She also discovers the seductive voice of Renuka’s poetry…
Renuka, Stephen Alter’s fourth novel, builds to a startling climax, while uncovering hidden truths about love, sexuality and passion.
REVIEWS:
Hill stations are not as sleepy and gtranquil as they might seem. You will discover forbidden love and intrigue in the most unlikely places. Kipking's Mrs. Hawksbee and her Simla crowd would have approved.
Alter is a thoughtful, stylish writer.
- Ruskin Bond
‘In Renuka, Alter has drawn a remarkable portrait of a totally credible woman… he captures exactly the love-hate attitudes of Westerners who spend time in the subcontinent…A rare achievement to use a simple framework so effectively’—Sarah Curtis, Times Literary Supplement
‘Renuka is a most accomplished, utterly convincing study of two women of different backgrounds and contrasting temperaments…The book rises to a moving climax, followed by an adagio of “lingering sadness” like the aftermath of a “disturbing dream”…by far [Alter’s] best’—John Mellors
Stephen Alter's voice is as unique as his life and background.
- Anita Desai