摘要：Preeta Samarasan's debut novel tells the story of a wealthy Indian immigrant family, the Rajasekharan and how lies and secrets affect and subsequently destroy its household. Set in a "springless summerless autumnless winterless land" (p. 1), that is, Malaysia, the book begins with the departure of the family's servant girl, Chellam, after which a chain reaction of past secrets is unleashed and gradually exposed as the novel unfolds. Chronologically, although the story is set in the 1980s, the novel makes liberal temporal leaps in order to prescribe a sense of historical continuity. For example, the reader is transported at one point to the late 1800s, when Appa's (the head of the household) father arrived in the Malay peninsula in order to make a living; at another point, the reader encounters the 1950s, and witnesses the unconventional courtship between Appa and Amma. This deployment of various temporalities is also a strategic means through which the plot's complexity is enhanced. Samarasan is obviously a skillful storyteller: while she deploys an omniscient narrator, her non-linear narrative structure (flashbacks dominate the narrative) enables the withholding of secrets so that their eventual revelations are exposed in a shocking and unexpected manner. In the end, the novel's pointed message is that the present can never supersede the past, for the former is premised on the latter. From the excessively drawn-out episode of Paati's (the grandmother) death in the bathroom, to subtle hints of incest, Samarasan cleverly controls the way in which knowing and unknowing are negotiated. Samarasan's keen observation of behaviour and social mores is also crucial to the story, especially because it brings her characters to life
