The Inheritance of Loss
By Kiran Desai
Atlantic
Much of this disarming novel takes place during the mid-1980s along the border between India and Nepal, where endless rebellion and political insurgency have ensured, as Desai says, that "it had always been a messy map." On a mountain ledge sits a house called Cho Oyu, its one-time grandeur lost, "its lines grown indistinct with moss." Inside are an irascible old judge and his beloved dog; the judge's orphaned teenage granddaughter, Sai; and their impoverished cook. In the early pages, this isolated existence is disrupted by evidence of yet another political uprising even as a second story unfolds in the US, where the cook's homesick son, Biju, tries to eke out a living as an illegal alien. The novel moves between India and America as political turmoil escalates, romance blossoms for Sai, loss comes to the judge and a somber Biju realizes that he and his father are no longer relevant to each other's lives.
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