Book Review
"Though the people drive the plot, it is Syal's exploration of traditional gender roles--plus the difficulty of escaping them without rejecting one's heritage--that provides the center of this fine, well-crafted tale."
"[W]hile [the novel] veers occasionally into melodrama, it is gossipy, funny and thoroughly entertaining. [Syal] manages to get inside the heads of three very different characters, inspiring sympathy for both tricky, adulterous sirens and sari-clad housewives."
Annotation
Three women in London, friends since childhood, seek to understand and transcend the constricting customs of their Indian families. One is a filmmaker, one a failed law student with a bad marriage, and the third--and most traditional--is married to a wealthy man. The filmmaker creates a documentary in which her two friends are featured, and their old friendship is destroyed, but each woman learns something important about her life, and finds strength in new ideas.
Publisher's Note
An Indian Waiting to Exhale--the hilarious and moving new novel from the prizewinning author of Anita and Me. At home, Meera Syal's women "walk in small steps, talk in sweet tones, pour dainty cupfuls, and refill plates in the shake of a dupatta," but at work, they "kick ass across courtrooms and computer screens." In a book somewhere between Waiting to Exhale and Bridget Jones's Diary, Syal has created an indelible portrait of a close-knit group of Indian women living in London. Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee is the story of Chila, a nice Punjabi girl married to the urbane Deepak, and her two childhood confidants: Sunita, the former activist law student, now an overweight, depressed housewife and mother; and the chic, beautiful Tania, who has rejected marriage in favor of a high-powered career in television and life in a trendy apartment with her English boyfriend. This hilariously scathing, no-holds-barred novel from the award-winning author of Anita and Me describes what happens when one of them makes a documentary, starring the other two, about contemporary urban Indian life.
In her hilarious and poignant novel, Meera Syal has created an indelible portrait of a close-knit group of Indian women living in London. Caught between two cultures, three childhood friends - Chila, Sunita, and Tania -- are expected to revert to being obedient mothers and wives. But their world explodes when Tania makes a documentary, starring Chila and Sunita, about contemporary urban Indian life. The result is an unforgettable story of friendships, marriage, betrayal, and the difficult choices women face.
