Twelve stories of immigrants who navigate the ancestral past of India
as they remake their lives--and themselves--in North America. These are
stories of fluid and broken identities, discarded languages and deities,
and the attempt to create bonds with a new community against the
ever-present fear of failure and betrayal.
"The narrative of immigration," Bharati Mukherjee once wrote, "is the
epic narrative of this millennium." Her stories and novels brilliantly
add to that ongoing saga. In the story "The Lady from Lucknow," a woman
is pushed to the limit while wanting nothing more than to fit in. In
"Hindus," characters discover that breaking away from a culture has deep
and unexpected costs. In "A Father," the clash of cultures leads a man
to an act of terrible violence. "How could he tell these bright, mocking
women," Mukherjee writes, "that in the darkness, he sensed invisible
presences: gods and snakes frolicked in the master bedroom, little white
sparks of cosmic static crackled up the legs of his pajamas. Something
was out there in the dark, something that could invent accidents and
coincidences to remind mortals that even in Detroit they were no more
than mortal."
There is light in these stories as well. The collection's closing story,
"Courtly Vision," brings to life the world within a Mughal miniature
painting and describes a light charged with excitement to discover the
immense intimacy of darkness. Readers will also discover that
excitement, and the many gradations of darkness and light, throughout
these pages from the mind of a master storyteller.
Darkness is part of Godine's Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy
of discovery with books bound to be classics.
