‘Vine’ ripe with insight

Picture a year of earthquakes, bulls in the stock market and death in Rwanda. It’s 1994, and the O.J. Simpson trial is just gathering steam – the media has no knowledge of the blitz yet to come: shuttles and towers and Monica and Bush Jr.

Now imagine looking at this year through eyes that are used to Calcutta, just recently adjusting to the San Francisco glare. The Vine of Desire, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, is a book set in the background of the vaguely remembered chaos of that year.

Vine of Desire, a sequel to Sister of My Heart, studies two cousins, Anju and Sudha, and the people around them.

The characters become trapped in a poetic hurricane of love, lust and the pulls of two cultures. Even a baby has a voice in the novel, observing the actions and thoughts of the frenzied adults around her.

Each character becomes so intertwined that each action forcibly affects the others, and it can be difficult at times to keep names and facts straight.

However, by going back over passages, the reader finds hints and meanings that don’t come out until the book is already finished.

Divakaruni was born in India, but came to the United States at 19.

She co-founded “Maitri,” an organization that helps South Asian women who are victims of domestic violence and abuse.

The subject arises in Vine of Desire when Sudha leaves her husband in India after his mom forcibly threatens to abort her first-born girl.

Divakaruni succeeds in painting the entire picture of family life in India in the same measured way she talks about American culture.

Sarah Adams, Daily Texan (U. Texas-Austin)

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