So I singled this out as one of the books I really wanted to read for my Spring/Summer NetGalley Project, to try and knock over a few books that have been sitting on that shelf for years. This one has been sitting there for an embarrassing almost 8 years. I read another book by this author, Island Of A Thousand Mirrors and thought it was incredible, which was why I had originally requested this one. I don’t know why I never got around to reading it but I suspect it was because I figured it might be a bit traumatic.

And traumatic it was, not going to lie. There are a lot of really difficult topics dealt with in this, starting with the fact that you know from the very beginning that our main character and narrator, has done something terrible. She’s speaking from jail (or perhaps some other facility) and you can kind of guess in the beginning what she’s done but before it confirms it, the narrative takes you back to her childhood in Sri Lanka as the only child of a wealthy man who is a university professor of history and his younger wife, who was impoverished with no dowry. It was a love match (or infatuation match?) on behalf of her father and as a woman with no money, no family, for her mother I assume it was an undreamed of result where she was able to secure the interest and marriage with a man from a wealthy family. She wanted a lot of children but was only able to successfully birth one, warned off by her doctor from having any more.

The main character’s childhood at first, seems idyllic although is punctuated by her mother’s depressive and manic moods. She learns when to be silent, when to be scarce. Then there’s the civil war and although it doesn’t personally impact on her in any real way, it changes her life and freedoms. But it is when tragedy strikes her family that her life really changes – she and her mother go to America. Her mother’s sister married a man and moved there and they live in California and run a travel agency. There our main character reinvents herself as an American girl, going to an American college, getting a job and being uninterested in the arranged marriage and children generally on offer in her culture. Always, always there is a shadowy trauma from her past that still consumes her and for a long time, it makes her wary of any involvement with men, until she meets Daniel, an artist. Daniel is white, from Virginia, with his own troubled past and for a while, they are blissfully happy (although with the lurking undertone always present of her childhood in Sri Lanka and the terrible things that happened to her there). Soon it becomes very clear that the main character is suffering from an extreme emotional trauma, exacerbated by the birth of her daughter and she becomes unable to tell the past from the present, with devastating consequences.

This is one of those books where you know what’s coming for a while but you still hope that it might not happen. That the beginning might’ve been a trick, that something is going to happen at the end of the story to change what you know. It isn’t that kind of story though and the creeping realisation of horror was so well done in this, it isn’t a thriller but my heart was racing reading this towards the end, with the sheer fear and desperation. It was built so expertly, especially from the time the main character realises the truth of what happened when she was a child and what that did to her, mentally.

It says something that this book can deal with the topic it did and I still felt for our main character. It shows the impacts of trauma, abuse and untreated mental health issues and also culture that shames and blames and it’s not just this particular culture but all cultures that shame women and glorify purity. That excuse the actions of men and blame women for attracting them whether they be adults or mere children. It causes damage that I think cannot be guessed at. And when the narrator finds out the truth, that it wasn’t as she suspected and was in fact, something even more traumatic, it causes a desperate psychotic break that destroys the lives of many. It was highly, highly upsetting to read and I was feeling incredibly sad and stressed. The writing was really incredible throughout, but especially in the latter part of the story. The feeling of impending doom, like you’re on an out of control train heading towards the end of the line, was incredibly well done. And it’s about diving into what can be behind something like this – the sort of thing you’d read on the news and make a snap judgement about, because how could someone do something like that? With the added judgement of especially a woman.

This was good but it’s not something to read if you want a fun time. It left me feeling drained emotionally but I’m still glad I read it.

8/10

Haunting. Dreamy. Devastating.

Ganga starts her story with a disturbing prologue, the tale of the moon bear. The moon bear is a “peaceable citizen,” a genetic forbear of all bears, living in the treetops from the Himalayas to Japan. In Chinese medicine, this bear’s bile is considered to be a medicinal treasure. Thousands of moon bears are captured and tormented in tiny “crush cages” for years where periodically their stomachs are slit for their bile. It was reported by Chinese media that a mother moon bear, hearing her cub crying in a nearby crush cage, broke through her own iron bars, pulled her cub to her and strangled it. She then smashed her own head against the wall until she died. Ganga’s reveals that her point in telling this story is that it tells the reader everything they need to know about the nature of love between a mother and a child.

Ganga is in a prison cell. She has done something unthinkable. Based on the prologue, you have a sense of deep dread as she slowly begins to unravel her tale…..from her childhood in lush Sri Lanka to the prison cell in the U.S., where she now resides. Scarred by childhood trauma buried deep, Ganga finds unexpected joy in a loving relationship with the magical Daniel, an artist she meets in San Francisco. Blissfully married and giddy with happiness, Ganga finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Conflicted, she and Daniel reconcile themselves to the idea of having a child and come to embrace the the grace of this gift. Baby girl Bodhi is born…..and Ganga becomes undone by the burdens of her past and the expectations of motherhood.

This story broke my heart. It grieved me to see Ganga find such joy only to have it snatched away. I loved Ganga and Daniel, although I thought Daniel’s character as written had some flaws that probably in real life wouldn’t have been likely. A small snag that did not worry me terribly.

Munaweera’s writing is as stunning as the cover of her book. There are lyrical descriptions of the beauty of Sri Lanka and San Francisco. Ganga’s revelations and internal meditations are delicate and expressive, a poetical lament of the soul.

I felt two themes were very powerful in this story. Water representing the flow of life is dominant; water is everywhere, giving and taking life. Monsoons, rivers, oceans, deep glacial lakes, rain….Ganga is the Hindu river goddess, so her own name informs the story. The other theme is motherhood and the stifling expectations and demands, the loss of one’s own identity in supplication to another’s. A deep conflict rages in Ganga.

Very well done, executed brilliantly. I read it twice, just for the sheer indulgence of experiencing Munaweera’s magnificent writing.

A 4.5. May come back and give this a 5.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this novel. My review, however, is based on the hardcover copy.