BOOK REVIEW: Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan
Being an avid reader, I highly support novels written by
local Malaysian authors because if it isn’t us who support Malaysian writers
then who else? Preeta Samarasan was born and raised in Malaysia but moved to
the United States in high school. Besides winning the 2006 Asian American
Writers’ Workshop short story award, she has also won a Hopwood Novel Award for
this moving novel.
Set in Malaysia, this spellbounding first novel introduces
us to the prosperous Rajasekharan family as it slowly peels away its closely
guarded secrets.
When the family’s rubber-planting servant girl is dismissed
for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of precipitous losses
that have shaken six-year-old Aasha’s life. In the space of several weeks her
grandmother died under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, left
for Columbia University, gone forever.
Circling through years of family history to arrive at the
moment of Uma’s departure – stranding her worshipful younger sister in a
family, and a country, slowly going to pieces – this book illuminates in
heartbreaking detail one Indian immigrant family’s layers of secrets and lies,
while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself.
Sweeping in scope, exuberantly lyrical, and masterfully
constructed, the author’s debut is a mesmerising and vital achievement.
In my opinion, this tome is rich, quirky and colourful, and
captures not just the sense of a family struggling to deal with its past, but
the crazy uncertainty of a country coming to terms with itself. Evening Is The
Whole Day moved me to tears as I read about themes of uncertainty in love,
family and life with all its ups and downs. For those who love to read
meaningful novels which carry important life messages, this is just the book
for you.
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