Book Review: Quarantine by Rahul Mehta
Title: Quarantine
Author: Rahul Mehta
Pages: 224
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: May 31st, 2011
Where I got the book: ARC from Harper Perennial
From the back cover:
With buoyant humor and incisive, cunning prose, Rahul Mehta sets off into uncharted literary territory. The characters in Quarantine—openly gay Indian-American men—are Westernized in some ways, with cosmopolitan views on friendship and sex, while struggling to maintain relationships with their families and cultural traditions. Grappling with the issues that concern all gay men—social acceptance, the right to pursue happiness, and the heavy toll of listening to their hearts and bodies—they confront an elder generation’s attachment to old-country ways. Estranged from their cultural in-group and still set apart from larger society, the young men in these lyrical, provocative, emotionally wrenching, yet frequently funny stories find themselves quarantined.
Review:
I’m not quite sure what drew me to this book, but I was excited to read it. It may have stemmed from the book Blue Boy by Rekesh Satyal, one of my favorite books in a long while. Blue Boy centered around a young Indian American boy who was different from the kids in his school because he was Indian and outcasted by the other Indian American kids because he acted strange and liked to play with make-up and dolls. Just the descriptions of an Indian American family trying to keep with tradition in America sparked my interest in Indian culture. Now that I think about it, White Teeth by Zadie Smith is another book I’ve read that touches upon this theme is old tradition versus today’s society. Although White Teeth isn’t a book I would recommend reading.
What makes Blue Boy and Quarantine so compelling, at least to me, is the contrasting differences between tradition and today’s modern society. Quarantine, through its collection of short stories, offers different perspectives on the same theme but focuses on the idea of being gay in a culture that may not be accepting of that lifestyle. In the stories the main characters will often get wrapped up in what is expected of them by their family, from taking care of an ill grandparent to moving to New York and becoming successful at a big publication, and have to try to put aside their own personal wants.
In most of the short stories, the main character has a boyfriend/partner who, whether they like it or not, get pulled in to the Indian culture by association. I kind of wish the boyfriends and their thoughts were explored a little more because I would have liked to know what they made of Indian culture and if they had a hard time understanding why the main character had to travel to India to take care of his grandmother.
My favorite story from the book was Citizen. It stuck out like a sore thumb because instead of being about an openly gay Indian American, it told the story of an older Indian women who is forced to move to American to live with her children after her husband dies. Her children want her to become an American citizen but since she is up there in her years, she has a hard time understanding the english language and the questions on the citizenship test. It’s equal parts heartwarming and sad. This woman would rather be back in Bombay than in America but all the decisions about her life are being made by her children who don’t even seem to have time for her. She only spends three months of the year before being passed along to the next of her four children.
Going in to this book I knew it was fiction but it wasn’t until the second story, when the names of the characters suddenly changed on me, did it full set in as fiction. It read like a memoir and that’s how my mind was first interpreting it. Even if it is fiction, I could easily see how some aspects from the stories might be based on real life events for the author.
Closing Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. It was very well written, and I was able to relate to the characters in the book because conflict between two generations is something, I feel, most people can relate to.
Tags: Blue Boy, book review, Quarantine, Rahul Mehta, Rekesh Satyal
September 20th, 2011 at 9:47 am
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