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by Indira Ganesan
The island is filled with exotic flora and fauna and perfumed air. A large family compound is presided over by a benign, stalwart grandmother. There is a very tall South Asian heroine with the astonishing un-Indian name of Meterling, who has found love at last in the shape of a short, round, elegant Englishman who wears white suits. There are also numerous aunts, uncles, and young cousins - among them, Mina, grown now, and telling this story of a marriage ceremony that ends with a widowed bride who, in the midst of her grief, discovers she is pregnant.
While enjoying their own games and growing pains, Mina and her young cousins follow every nuance of gossip, trying to puzzle out what is going on with their favorite aunt, particularly when the groom's cousin arrives from England and begins to woo her. As Meterling - torn between Eastern and Western ideas of love and family, duty and loyalty - struggles to make a new life, we become as entranced with this family, its adventures and complications, as Mina is.
And with her we celebrate a time and place where, although sometimes difficult, life was for the most part as sweet as honey.
"Starred Review. Despite some slightly strained plot twists, the characters' genuine charm and the girlish, witty energy of the storytelling are irresistible." - Kirkus Reviews
"Ganesan spins the lush magic of island life out into the real world. Repercussions of colonialism echo for generations, but the women of Pi find opportunity in the tumult. In this enclosed world..." - Publishers Weekly
This information about As Sweet as Honey was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Indira Ganesan was born in Srirangam, South India, and immigrated to the United States when she was five years old. Her first novel, The Journey, was recognized by Granta's first Best 52 American Novelists campaign. Her second novel, Inheritance, was published in the US when she held a Mary Ingraham Bunting award at Radcliffe College. She has held fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center, The MacDowell Colony, and the Paden Institute for Writers of Color.
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