Amit Mitra finds a letter from an uncle who left
the picture long ago. His mother Romola Mitra found the
letter from the uncle in her first days as a newlywed.
Her husband Avinash Mitra never knew that letter from the
uncle existed. All the while, this letter breeds secrets
and secrets the small family manages to keep under wraps
in spite of the difficulties in their lives. The past and
present collide as the family is torn between their roots
in India and their lives in America. From the McDonald's
down the street to the far-distant home in Calcutta,
Romola must find where she belongs in the world after her
husband is gone. Full of secret romances and questionable
histories, the story of the Mitra family unwinds itself
in short stories masterfully written in DON'T LET HIM
KNOW.
DON'T LET HIM KNOW is a magnificent debut novel.
I couldn't put it down. It is so colorful and rich in
detail that I found myself transported from my desk to
India, a world of tradition and family ties buried in
spice. One can almost feel the pressures on each member
of the family as they try to go about normal lives even
in the face of the most difficult problems the world can
offer. I found myself able to identify well with Romola,
a woman whose life is turned upside down by a marriage
she does not particularly desire and a husband whose love
she cannot fully depend on. When she first reads the
letter which changes everything for her, her pain is so
focused and so real. The prose and points of view are all
beautifully varied but still similar enough to be
reminiscent of one another.
This is a short-but-intense novel which I would
recommend to any reader who wants to truly feel the
emotions of a complex family life which holds secrets
both personal and shared. By the time the final story
ends the reader has been transported to an amazing world
where even the most mundane of things—a letter, a
hamburger, a lipstick—has become a catalyst for huge
emotional change. DON'T LET HIM KNOW is the beginning of
what I believe is a promising literary career.
In a boxy apartment building in an Illinois university
town,
Romola Mitra, a newly arrived young bride, anxiously
awaits
her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally
opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades
letter,
her son Amit finds that letter and thinks he has
discovered
his mother's secret. But secrets have their own secrets
sometimes.
Amit does not know that Avinash, his dependable and
devoted
father, has been timidly visiting gay chat rooms, driven
by
the lifelong desires he never allowed himself to indulge.
Avinash, for his part, doesn't understand what his dutiful
wife gave up in marrying him -- the memories of romance
she
keeps tucked away.
Growing up in Calcutta, in a house bustling with feisty
grandmothers, Amit has been shielded from his parents'
secrets. Now he's a successful computer engineer, settled
in
San Franscisco yet torn between his new life and his
duties
to the one he left behind.
Moving from adolescent rooftop games to adult encounters
in
gay bars, from hair salons in Calcutta to McDonald's
drive-thrus in California, Don't Let Him Know is an
unforgettable story about family and the sacrifices we
make
for those we love. Tender, funny, and beautifully told, it
marks the arrival of a resonant new voice.
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