About the Book
Thrity Umrigar, who "displays an impressive talent for conceiving multidimensional, sympathetic characters with life-like emotional quandaries and psychological stumbling blocks," (Washington Post Book World) brings her talent to the social struggles of modern day Bombay in THE SPACE BETWEEN US.
"This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay."-- Washington Post Book World
"Bracingly honest."-- New York Times Book Review
The author of Bombay Time, If Today Be Sweet, and The Weight of Heaven, Thrity Umrigar is as adept and compelling in The Space Between Us--vividly capturing the social struggles of modern India in a luminous, addictively readable novel of honor, tradition, class, gender, and family. A portrayal of two women discovering an emotional rapport as they struggle against the confines of a rigid caste system, Umrigar's captivating second novel echoes the timeless intensity of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible--a quintessential triumph of modern literary fiction.
About the Author :
Thrity Umrigar is the author of seven novels Everybody's Son, The Story Hour, The World We Found, The Weight of Heaven, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time; a memoir, First Darling of the Morning; and a children's picture book, When I Carried You in My Belly. A former journalist, she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard and was a finalist for the PEN Beyond Margins Award. A professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, she lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Review :
"Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer." - New York Times Book Review
"Out of India's seething hotch-potch of humanity Thrity Umrigar has created two vivid female characters, each representative of thousands of real-life Indian women.... At the heart of this novel is the symbiotic relationship--the essence of distance and intimacy--between Sera and Bhima which, after 20 years, remains defined by their differing class, education and wealth.... This ultimately tragic story is told against the vibrant backdrop of modern Mumbai.... The book's pages glow with descriptions of the city.... [Umrigar] tackles, across the span of her characters' lives, many of the issues affecting India today: poverty engendering poverty; the power of privilege and wealth; domestic violence; class; education; women's rights; AIDS. This adds richness, making The Space Between Us far more than an analysis of fate and a portrait of the bonds of womanhood. It is also a powerful social commentary on the glorious and frustrating jigsaw puzzle that is modern India." - The Economist
"[The Space Between Us] is a great book; I love it.... I couldn't stop reading until Bhima had her amazing epiphany of freedom at the edge of the sea. I am so happy for Thrity Umrigar! And proud of her as a woman, too.... It is so precious to have a book about a woman one rarely even "sees" in society, whether Indian or American." - Alice Walker on THE SPACE BETWEEN US
"Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer.... Her portrait of Sera as a woman unable to transcend her middle-class skin feels bracingly honest." - New York Times Book Review
"The Space Between Us is a novel that is hard to forget." - The Times (London)
"Umrigar's imagery, gorgeous yet unflinching in its realism, creates a rich picture of Indian society in Bombay, from slum to skyscraper. Her symbolism is lovely." - Charlotte Observer
"A deeply affecting novel about a wealthy widow and her maid, who form a bond across the gulfs of class and status in modern-day Bombay." - Life magazine
"[The Space Between Us] is provocative and disturbing." - Boston Globe
"Intimately and compassionately told.... Sensuous.... Umrigar's memorable characters will live on for a long time." - Frances Itani, Washington Post Book World
"Umrigar's schematic novel illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay.... Umrigar's writing achieves clarity." - Publishers Weekly
"Umrigar is a highly skilled storyteller...the novel's plot and depth of characterisation provide irresistible momentum." - Time Out New York
"Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate." - Booklist (starred review)
"Heartbreaking.... A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power... that quietly roars against tyranny." - Kirkus Reviews
"Poignant." - Entertainment Weekly
"With humanity and suspense, novelist Thrity Umrigar tackles love, loyalty, injustice - and survival." - Marie Claire
"On a sunny afternoon, all right in my world, I burst into deep, heaving tears. I was reading The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar.... Umrigar's prose is so powerful, so true, and so cleanly written that if offers one of those moments in which those of us who live by fiction live for: when writing throws back the veil between life and art.... [The Space Between Us] preaches nothing and yet teaches everything about compassion.... The wonderful thing about such transcendent writing is precisely that you don't have to "live by fiction" to appreciate it. Don't miss The Space Between Us. Thrity Umrigar has written a novel that deals with the problem of the present as informed by the past, and it is a marvelous thing." - Pages Magazine
"Thrity Umrigar has created two wonderfully sympathetic characters who do much to make [India's] complex nature comprehensible.... This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay.... The life of the privileged is harshly measured against the life of the powerless, but empathy and compassion are evoked by both strong women, each of whom is forced to make a separate choice. Umrigar is a skilled storyteller, and her memorable characters will live on for a long time." - Frances Itani, Washington Post Book World
"From page one, Thrity Umrigar's novel thrusts us into a story that's at once heartbreaking and soothing. Chronicling the tumultuous lives of two women, The Space Between Us doesn't flinch from its scrutiny of human suffering; then it gently, gently guides us toward healing." - Samrat Upadhyay, author of The Royal Ghosts
"Set in contemporary Bombay, Umrigar's second novel is an affecting portrait of a woman and her maid, whose lives, despite class disparity, are equally heartbreaking.... A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power. Umrigar transcends the specifics of two Bombay women and creates a novel that quietly roars against tyranny." - Kirkus Reviews
"Remarkable.... What makes The Space Between Us so engrossing is its ability to make readers feel empathy for its subjects.... To read Umrigar's novel is to catch a glimpse of a foreign culture, for better and for worse. Yet while the class divide between Bhima and Sera provides much of the conflict in The Space Between Us, it isn't the only source of disagreement. Class colors everything, but in the end, Umrigar shows, every one of life's ups and downs are available to us all." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Umrigar renders a collection of compelling and complex characters, from kind, conflicted Sera to fiercely devoted Bhima. Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate." - Booklist (starred review)
