Review by Choice Review
The author's mother never told her that she was an untouchable. What she was told is that in their family, they were all Christians. Even so, the author figured out relatively early that whether she was a Christian or an untouchable made little difference in her quotidian life in India. Gidla tells the story of her family in postindependence India, specifically the story of her uncle Satyamurthy and her mother Manjula. We learn about the abject poverty in which the author grew up, the insults that her family was subjected to by caste Hindus, and the resilience that her uncle and mother displayed in the face of tremendous economic adversity. In spite of these privations, the author's parents went on to acquire an education that qualified them to be college teachers, and the author herself obtained a master's degree before moving to America for further studies. This book contains a poignant tale of the kind of life led by some of India's weakest citizens. It sheds powerful light on the indomitable spirit of the author's family and its ceaseless quest for a respectable life and a more just society. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Rochester Institute of Technology
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
WHO IS RICH? by Matthew Klam. (Random House, $17.) Rich Fischer, the protagonist of this novel of infidelity and middle age, is a cartoonist whose fame is fading. Unhappy at home, with his career coming to a slow standstill, he returns to an arts conference where he struck up an affair the previous summer. Klam, the author of the short story collection "Sam the Cat," brings a mordantly funny touch to existentially tragic circumstances. THE STARS IN OUR EYES: The Famous, the Infamous, and Why We Care Way Too Much About Them, by Julie Klam. (Riverhead, $16.) "I've always been enamored with celebrities," the author (Matthew Klam's sister) writes. She goes on to consider the bargains celebrities strike for fame, and examines why they've always been objects of keen fascination: Before the Kardashians there was Antony and Cleopatra. THINGS THAT HAPPENED BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE, by Chiara Barzini. (Anchor, $16.) In the early 1990s, Eugenia, an Italian teenager, is uprooted by her parents for the San Fernando Valley, as Los Angeles is racked by protests. "Barzini, truly a writer to watch, positions herself astride both American and Sicilian cultures, and packs this visceral book with strong sensations from both," our critic, Janet Maslin, wrote. THE GREAT NADAR: The Man Behind the Camera, by Adam Begley. (Tim Duggan, $16.) Begley offers a concise but satisfying biography of the 19th-century French photographer whose portraits of Parisian luminaries (Victor Hugo, George Sand, Sarah Bernhardt) remain standout examples of the genre. His most significant work, from a six-year stretch, combines "an almost sculptural force of composition and lighting with an acute psychological penetration unmatched in their day," Luc Sante said here. THE RED-HAIRED WOMAN, by Orhan Pamuk. Translated by Ekin Oklap. (Vintage, $16.) A teenager's encounter in rural Turkey with a married traveling performer reverberates throughout his life in this moody novel. Pamuk's usual themes are on display: the East-West dialectic, the tensions between modernity and tradition, the relationship between secular and sacred, with Istanbul as both a backdrop and muse. ANTS AMONG ELEPHANTS: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, by Sujatha Gidla. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.) The author, who was born into a low caste before leaving for the United States, offers an unsettling view of how discrimination, segregation and prejudice are very much alive in contemporary India. As she writes in this poignant memoir: "Your life is your caste, your caste is your life."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
In this compelling, immersive portrait of India, beginning just before independence in 1947, the author shares her family's personal stories, focusing closely on her uncle Satyam, who became a famous poet, political agitator, and influential Communist Party member. Gidla explores the explosive nexus of ethnic, religious, and nationalist energies that converged across the country, from her small village community of converted Christians to the large rallies of Communist supporters, 10,000 strong. The fast-paced, often-intense action takes place in captivating, fluid prose that retains an evocative vocabulary from Gidla's native Telugu language, such as when the dora sent his goondas to round up the sangham leaders and drag them to his gadi, where they were tortured. Just as fascinating as the stories she tells of her family members is the life of the storyteller herself: born into the untouchable social class, Gidla obtained a college education and moved to New York City, where she now works as a subway conductor. At once intimate and ambitious, Gidla's book succeeds in placing the nuances of memoir within a grand historical context.--Báez, Diego Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this brilliant debut, Gidla documents the story of her resilient family and India's modern political history. Gidla grew up in India as an untouchable, the lowest category in India's caste system, and now works as a subway conductor in New York City. In this epic, she shares intimate stories of her uncle Satyam, a revolutionary poet and steadfast communist; her uncle Carey, a hapless yet ardent supporter of Satyam; and her mother Manjula, the core of the family's strength. Her uncle Satyam was a political organizer within the movement that won its demand for statehood for Andhra Pradesh from former president Nehru. Gidla eloquently weaves together her family narratives with Indian politics, specifically focusing on the practices and consequences of caste inequality. The book is also a fascinating chronicle of the corruption within and political battles between India's Congress Party and its Communist Party. Gidla is a smart and deeply sympathetic narrator who tells the lesser known history of India's modern communist movement. The book never flags, whether covering Satyam's political awakening as a young and poor bohemian or Manjula's rocky marriage to a mercurial and violent man. Gidla writes about the heavy topics of poverty, caste and gender inequality, and political corruption with grace and wit. Gidla's work is an essential contribution to contemporary Indian literature. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Untouchables are the lowest caste in Indian society, and it is their lot to suffer the appalling abuse and unceasing indignities of extreme poverty. In her first book, Gidla tells the remarkable story of her untouchable family during one of India's most turbulent eras. Her clan knew political strife. Uncle Satyam lived on the knife's edge of political activism, while mother Manjula struggled under a heinous caste mentality, her difficulties compounded by the widespread scorn reserved for lowly women. The book is filled with poignant domestic scenes inter-mingled with alarming clashes among rival political ideologies. Those with an interest in religion will be fascinated by the family's unusual Christian upbringing in a predominantly Hindu culture. The narration is excellently performed by -Soneela Nankani. VERDICT Recommend to listeners who enjoy family memoirs, political history, and books set in India.--Denis Frias, -Mississauga Lib. Syst., Ont. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Firsthand account of the lives of people categorized as the lowest of the low in India's caste system.Trained as a physicist, the daughter of teachers, Gidla is nonetheless an untouchable, which she describes as something like the racism African-Americans are forced to endure; though it is not built on identifiable markers such as skin color, it is nonetheless a pervasive indignity. "Because your life is your caste," she writes, "your caste is your life." Yet, as her narrative demonstrates, it is possible to slip around the caste system by becoming something even more untouchable than an untouchable: namely, an outlaw, and in the case of Gidla's uncle Satyamurthy, the founder of "a Maoist guerrilla group recently declared by the government to be the single greatest threat to India's security." Charming and clever, SM, as he is known, is still committed to revolution even in old age, given to disappearing in the jungle to fight and organize. Another uncle, who also figures in the author's account, escaped from the weight of untouchability with the help of alcohol, which felled him before he could fully contribute his memories to her narrative. That searching family history reaches back into a past in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, where, even in the 1800s, her ancestors were living as nomads who "worshipped their own tribal goddesses and had little to do with society outside the forest where they lived." When enfolded by caste society, though without caste themselves, they became untouchable, meaning, literally, that any contact would defile even the lowest-caste Hindu. That system of belief, writes Gidla, affected every aspect of their lives, determining where they could live and how they could work, so much so that even in his revolutionary movement, SM had to field questions of caste at every turn. Students of civil rights activism and South Asian societies will find much of value in Gidla's far-ranging narrative, dense with detail and anecdote. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
