Bitter Sweets: A Novel

US: St. Martin's Publishing Grou, 2008. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Nominated for the Orange Prize With this spellbinding first novel about the destructive lies three immigra nt generations of a Pakistani/Bangladeshi family tell each other, Roopa Far ooki adds a fresh new voice to the company of Zadie Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri an d Arudhati Roy. Henna Rub is a precocious teenager whose wheeler-dealer father never misses a business opportunity and whose sumptuous Calcutta marriage to wealthy ro mantic Ricky-Rashid Karim is achieved by an audacious network of lies. Rick y will learn the truth about his seductive bride, but the way is already pa ved for a future of double lives and deception-family traits that will filt er naturally through the generations, forming an instinctive and unspoken t radition. Even as a child, their daughter Shona, herself conceived on a lie and born in a liar's house, finds telling fibs as easy as ABC. But years later, livi ng above a sweatshop in South London's Tooting Bec, it is Shona who is forc ed to discover unspeakable truths about her loved ones and come to terms wi th what superficially holds her family together-and also keeps them apart-a cross geographical, emotional and cultural distance. Roopa Farooki has crafted an intelligent, engrossing and emotionally powerful Indian family saga that will stay with you long after you've read the last page.