A Good Indian Wife: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Anne Cherian
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $11.97
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 25046
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.5
ISBN: 0393065235
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780393065237
ASIN: 0393065235
Publication Date: May 7, 2008
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Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
A clash of hearts and cultures set against the divergent backdrops of rural India and downtown San Francisco.
Handsome anesthesiologist Neel prides himself on his decisiveness, both in and out of the operating room. So when he agrees to return to India to visit his ailing grandfather, he is sure he'll be able to resist his family's pleas that he marry a "good" Indian girl. With a girlfriend and a promising career back in San Francisco, the last thing Neel needs is an arranged marriage.
Leila is a thirty-year-old teacher in Neel's family's village who has watched too many prospective husbands come and go to think her newest suitor will be any different. She is well past prime marrying age; her family has no money for a dowry; and then there's the matter of an old friendship with a Muslim boy named Janni.
Neel and Leila struggle to reconcile their own desires with the expectations of others in this riveting story of two people, two countries, and two ways of life that may be more compatible than they seem.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 I read this book while in India July 11, 2008
I bought this book just prior to a recent trip I made to India. Started reading it on the plane and finished it several days later in Delhi. I am so glad that I bought this when I did. It helped me understand some things in India that I would not have noticed had I not read the book. For example, the cow piles that are dried and used for fuel. I saw a cartload of these in Agra but I would not even have known what I was looking at if not for this book. I think the stereotypes in the book are fairly accurate based on my experience working with people from India for the past 3 years and also having visited there. Especially when it comes to arranged marriages. One only has to look at the Sunday "Matrimonials" section of the newspapers there to see that light skin color is advertised as a highly prized asset. I have recommended this book to everyone I met in India so that they can get an idea of what it would be like to move to the States. I left it in Delhi for a friend to read and he also enjoyed it. I hope she continues to write novels because I cannot wait for the next one.
 Cherian uses outdated stereotypes June 14, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I felt this was a great summer beach book, until I came across some sections in the book that use very outdated stereotypes. For example the character Caroline's brother who calls Suneel "colored". What?! The character is from WI, where I grew up, and I have NEVER heard someone talk like that. It was too unrealistic for me. I thought the book may have been written in 1960, hence I could understand the outdated material, but was shocked to see the copy write date as 2008. Cherian continued to use some seriously outdated stereotypes of Indians as well. After reading the other sections of the book where she implies Indian men have a desire or preference for marrying a "white" woman for status is just crazy. I am in a mixed marriage myself (one of us is white and the other Indian). I felt this story just did not ring true at all. It felt like Cherian was trying to push her perspective on life and maybe she feels, as she has her characters say, "it's better to marry your own kind". She has the end of the story end up in happiness for the Indian couple and heart ache for the mixed couple. The ended made me think I was watching an old, typical bollywood film. I felt as though the author should have kept writing about characters she knows well, those from India and those from California. I fell in love with Leila's strong, gutsy personality and the Aunty Vimla's nosey competitive spirit; both characters's felt authentic. I feel it's not a good idea to develop a character from a region without getting to know what a real person from that area would be like. Suneel's character was also a bit hard to buy into as well. How could a real man make such a complete turn around from the uncaring and mind game playing partner with Caroline to the loving caring husband to Leila. I wanted this book to be a bit more believable because I loved other parts of the book so much. Cherian has a wonderful gift at story telling. I finished the book in two reading sessions because it was such a page turner, but I would get jostled out of my reading escape when I came across those unrealistic scenes, such as the one with Caroline's brother meeting Suneel in her apartment. It was like watching a movie and being engrossed in the story until you see the microphone boom get into the shot and then you suddenly remember, wait I'm watching a movie this isn't real, and the escape from reality is over...the movie looses it's intended affect.
Wants and needs June 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a very compelling, well crafted, and enjoyable book, which wryly examines the difference between what we think we want, and what we truly desire. The story also contrasts the dynamics of arranged marriages versus "love matches" and in the process finds similar potential pit-falls in both.
As we are drawn into the manifold relationships stretching out in all directions from one marriage, we are given a generous view of universal human strengths and frailties. Anne Cherian's tale provides a reminder that sometimes our most cherished self-images and long-held dreams can be chimerical when compared to that which truly provides a sense of comfort and ease. And, that it sometimes takes an independent nature and a bit of rebelliousness to find the wisdom in the conventional.
 "In the scheme of marriage, a wedding is just the beginning." May 17, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Cherian's engaging novel melds the diverse cultures of two countries, San Francisco anesthesiologist Suneel Sarath unable to bridge his bifurcated life, successful California physician and dutiful son of Indian parents who expect him to embrace family tradition and choose an Indian wife. Neel, as he prefers to be called in his modern incarnation, returns to the family home in rural India when he learns his grandfather is gravely ill. Soon after his arrival, Neel is enmeshed with his family's machinations, a well-planned effort to match him with an appropriate bride. With no intention of cooperating beyond the most cursory level of social contact, Neel's calculated appeasement backfires; he finds himself wed to thirty-year-old Leila, a teacher of English literature who long ago reconciled herself to spinsterhood. Convinced her dream of marriage and family will never come true, Leila is amazed when the impossible happens, wed to a handsome, if emotionally distant man.
Of course nothing is ever as simple as it appears. While Leila adapts to the idea of the exciting adventures awaiting her in America, Neel has other problems; he has a tangled past, unfinished business only made more complicated by his marriage. There is a long-term girlfriend waiting in San Francisco, Neel's life far removed from the Indian childhood he left behind. Success has allowed unexpected freedoms on the West Coast, including a blonde beauty far from the conventional standards of his family's expectations. Meanwhile, Leila has no idea why her romantic dreams fail to reach fruition, Neel withdrawn and uncommunicative, juggling the real-time problems of married life with a demanding girlfriend who has long harbored her own fantasies of the future. The spirited and independent Leila, confused by her husband's intractability, tries to accommodate Neel's temperament, plagued with self-doubts and vague suspicions.
The author has crafted an elegant, poignant novel that is a joy to read, capturing the characters' intricacies, hopes and disappointments. Both women in Neel's life delude themselves, making excuses for behavior they don't understand. Neel temporizes, caught between two worlds, the familiarity of his Indian heritage at odds with modern Western culture, rebelling at the repression of generations. The very American girlfriend is sadly predictable, tolerating Neel's wife until she becomes an unacceptable threat, Leila full of surprises, discovering her voice in this unfamiliar place where new friends think her beautiful and interesting. The usual problems of early marriage weigh upon this couple, exacerbated by pride and misunderstanding. In a fascinating mating dance that draws the pair together, while at the same time pushing them apart, love planted in foreign soil blooms in the city by the bay. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
A cross-cultural treat May 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Anne Cherian manages to write successfully in multiple 'tongues' -- from those of her protagonists, Leila and Neel, whose arranged marriage leaves them facing a communication gulf is as wide as the distance between 1980's San Francisco and a village in India. The result is very good, particularly for a first novel.
I loved "being" in India and, though some readers might trip over Cherian's use of foreign language, I found it lovely to deduce the meanings (more than once, I found myself salivating over the detailed descriptions of Indian food). And I loved being in 1980's San Francisco (in fact, having lived there then, I found the rendering mightily evocative.)
The novel is indeed Jane-Austinish, particularly in the slowly-evolving opening and the "who's marrying whom?" mystery, but it takes off in the middle and is a real nail-biter all the way to the last page. If you like Austin but want a break from 19th-century England, this is quite a treat. The novel cries out for a sequel -- I long to see what happens as Leila becomes ever more self-confident and independent in her new country.
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