The heart is a shifting sea : love and marriage in Mumbai
Record details
- ISBN: 9780062456489
-
Physical Description:
print
regular print
xxii, 358 pages : maps ; 24 cm - Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2018.
- Copyright: ©2018.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Marriage -- India -- Mumbai Marriage -- India -- Mumbai -- Case studies Married people -- India -- Mumbai |
Available copies
- 6 of 6 copies available at Sitka.
- 1 of 1 copy available at Kaslo and District Public Library. (Show preferred library)
Holds
- 0 current holds with 0 total copies.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kaslo and District Public Library | 306.81 FLO (Text) | 35134000413597 | Adult Non-fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
Castlegar Public Library | 306.81 FLO (Text) | 35146002060994 | Non-Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
Invermere Public Library | 306.81 FLO (Text) | IPL054408 | Adult Non Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
Mackenzie Public Library | 306.81 FLO (Text) | 35192000310841 | Adult Non-Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
Terrace Public Library | 306.81 FLO (Text) | 35151001059435 | Adult Non-fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
Williams Lake Branch | 306.81 FLO (Text) | 33923005922806 | Non-fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2017 December #1
Magnificent, over-the-top romantic gestures; a war waged for one woman's love; and happily-ever-after Bollywood films paint a clear picture of romance in India. But real life, as three married couples show in this book, is more complicated. Whether her subjects eloped in defiance of the bride's father or were brought together by an online matchmaker, Flock puts you at the center of their stories in an impressive feat of reporting, bringing forward details culled from encounters and interviews over several years. The challenges faced by each couple are, in many ways, universalâinfertility, infidelity, spats over finances and family. But they are also unique to the cultures they belong to in India, where Western ideas jostle uneasily with Indian tradition. This is particularly evident in the great control that the parents exercise over their grown children's lives, from selecting who they will marry to controlling their daughters-in-law once they move into the family house. These three marriages, without the Bollywood polish, offer an unforgettable look at both the risks and rewards of real-life romance. Copyright 2017 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2017 December #1
Intimate portraits of three marriages reveal family life in Mumbai.Flock, a reporter for PBS NewsHour and former investigative reporter for Forbes India Magazine, makes her literary debut with an absorbing, candid look at three couples as they confront life in a changing India. While families prefer marriages to be arranged, young couples imbibe notions about love and romance from Bollywood movies. One young husband worries about not having a car: in films, he reflects, "men took women out on long drives in their car or on their motorcycle. It was how they fell in love." Parents hire matchmakers, while single men and women try to find true love from dating sites and events. Fathers exert draconian control over daughters who yearn for autonomy. Flock lived with the couples for a while, observing their interactions; her journalistic style pays off. One couple shared their online chats with her; others kept in touch by email for nearly a decade. Each marriage faced problems. For Veer and Maya, their relationship was fraught from the beginning because Veer had been in love with another woman, who rejected him; and Maya, frustrated and volatileâand, it emerges, a victim of sexual abuse as a childâhad attempted suicide. Her restlessness and Veer's obsession with work strained their marriage. Maya considered divorce, but her reasons for unhappiness did not come under the stipulations of the Hindu Marriage Act; instead, she has affairs. Shahzad and Sabeena faced Shahzad's sterility; in a culture that expects marriages to grow into families, Shahzad felt desperate to prove his manhood, consulting medical doctors as well as fortunetellers, herbalists, and quacks. Ashok and Parvati, both Tamil Brahmins, felt pressure to marry within their caste and religion, although Parvati had been in love with a Christian man, inciting her father's rage, and Ashok had not yet found a companion. Brought together by a matchmaking site and affirmed by astrologe r s, they agreed to marry after meeting in person only briefly. An eye-opening exploration of how tradition and star-studded dreams shape love in modern India. Copyright Kirkus 2017 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2018 February #1
Reporter Flock creates an intimate portrait of three marriages in her first book. Following two Hindu couples and a Muslim couple living in India's largest city, Mumbai, for more than a decade, Flock captures both the life-changing events and the daily minutiae that make up romantic and domestic partnerships. Because Flock goes deep, rather than broad, in exploring the various customs of marriage and parenthood in India, she makes readers feel as though they are peering through a window into these couples' lives. Arranged marriages, anxieties over sex, and struggles with fertility are all on display here; Flock writes about these sensitive topics with generosity and empathy in this beautifully rendered, intricate, and human exploration of love and marriage in Mumbai.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal.VERDICT All readers interested in Southeast Asian culture, as well as scholars of anthropology, sociology, and other social sciences will be fascinated with this accessible account.âJennifer Stout, Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Lib., Richmond - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2017 October #2
Journalist Flock invites readers into the homes, lives, and marriages of three couplesâone Marwari Hindu, one Sunni Muslim, and one Tamil Brahmin Hinduâliving in Mumbai in this multifaceted portrait of love and marriage in modern India. Layered with history and glimpses of the varied cultures compressed into one vivacious city, the book pays as much attention to the lives of its subjects as it does to that which binds them together: the rituals of courtship and intricacies of marriage law, religious observances and festivals, and changing conventions that are seeing more couples choosing to live apart from their families and more women choosing to work outside of the home. Flock finds people trying to find happiness within the slipknot of tradition, longing for film-style romance within their arranged marriages, and searching peace with their lives inside a city and a country undergoing rapid population growth, Western influence, and rising far-right sentiment. There's Ashok and Parvati, who get to know one another while planning a wedding (their courtship was arranged by their parents using an online matchmaking service); Shazhad and Sabeena, whose failure to conceive leads them to a more liberal practice of Islam (Sunni law doesn't recognize adoption); and Maya and Veer, career-oriented individuals who deal with infidelity and Maya's need for independence. Flock approaches the histories, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of her middle- and upper-middle-class couples as a reporter, not a storyteller, and the book is better for it, steering clear of caricature and sentiment, and letting each of her subjects emerge in the details of his or her own circumstances. Ostensibly a study of marriage as experienced by the people in it, Flock's book also provides a vivid portrait of a nation in transition, through the lives and desires of its most progressive city's residents.
Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly.(Feb.)