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A review by baoluong
Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi
2.0
Felt like forever to finish, but I like the inclusion of a character with Down’s syndrome. Everything else can be explained as separated woman trying to reconnect with her home town.
Grace never felt connected to her life in America. In a long term relationship with a man named Blake and a less than meaningful circle of people surrounding her, she dreams of finding herself. She dreams there is a realer version she has yet to discover and like someone unwilling to accept how unspectacular a life can be, she desperately hopes there is just more to life. More than the daily routine and drivel. The way that her marriage has slowly eroded because he’s not the person she first met or maybe she’s not the same person anymore. The way she can’t help but find her parents to be normal people who stayed together because they had to, alone in a country they didn’t understand. The rare moments of something special is something Grace holds on to so tightly she forgets that the very nature of existing can be enough.
The pacing of the book is ice berg slow. Grace takes extreme lengths of time to reminisce and we’re mostly in her own head as she remembers a past that’s been altered once learning about her sister Lucia. A sister she’s never known existed because she’s been housed in a home for people with Down Syndrome. Maybe she feels some guilt being the “above ground” sister like the movie Us. Maybe this is the only connection to her now deceased mother who had such a private relationship to her other daughter. Either way, Grace decides to take care of Lucia herself and in this act she gives into the idea that she needs to control everything. Or that there’s a purpose to life that’s greater than ourselves.
Perhaps this is why she takes her role as caretaker seriously at first but after learning that her sister is more difficult with a myriad of idiosyncratic behaviors and a penchant to appeal to Grace’s feelings of guilt. Grace comes to love and hate her sister but more so recognizes that this is simply her life. There is no greener grass on the other side. Living in India again, with an absent father, a lost marriage, and a sea side house, she accepts that she is capable of being enough for herself.
Grace never felt connected to her life in America. In a long term relationship with a man named Blake and a less than meaningful circle of people surrounding her, she dreams of finding herself. She dreams there is a realer version she has yet to discover and like someone unwilling to accept how unspectacular a life can be, she desperately hopes there is just more to life. More than the daily routine and drivel. The way that her marriage has slowly eroded because he’s not the person she first met or maybe she’s not the same person anymore. The way she can’t help but find her parents to be normal people who stayed together because they had to, alone in a country they didn’t understand. The rare moments of something special is something Grace holds on to so tightly she forgets that the very nature of existing can be enough.
The pacing of the book is ice berg slow. Grace takes extreme lengths of time to reminisce and we’re mostly in her own head as she remembers a past that’s been altered once learning about her sister Lucia. A sister she’s never known existed because she’s been housed in a home for people with Down Syndrome. Maybe she feels some guilt being the “above ground” sister like the movie Us. Maybe this is the only connection to her now deceased mother who had such a private relationship to her other daughter. Either way, Grace decides to take care of Lucia herself and in this act she gives into the idea that she needs to control everything. Or that there’s a purpose to life that’s greater than ourselves.
Perhaps this is why she takes her role as caretaker seriously at first but after learning that her sister is more difficult with a myriad of idiosyncratic behaviors and a penchant to appeal to Grace’s feelings of guilt. Grace comes to love and hate her sister but more so recognizes that this is simply her life. There is no greener grass on the other side. Living in India again, with an absent father, a lost marriage, and a sea side house, she accepts that she is capable of being enough for herself.