A literary triumph

The best books are like warm cups of tea: fulfilling, satisfying, brimming with life. And that's the type of book I got when I read Anita Kushwaha's Secret Lives of Mothers & Daughters (Harper Avenue, 2020).

I had it pre-ordered for weeks, but I promised myself that when it finally came I'd let it sit, and when I finally began to read, I'd savor it. I didn't want to fly through the pages like I normally would. I knew it was going to be beautiful, and I wanted it to last.

My plan worked pretty well for a while. I promised myself to take it a chapter at a time and let it percolate. But it didn't take me long before I just refused to put it down. Asha's and Mala's lives became too important; I had to know what would happen to them...

The mothers...

Veena, Mala, Nandini. Haunted by secrets. Each linked by a daughter who may not be able to bear them.

The daughters...

Mala and Asha. Each so very different, yet similarly burdened by struggles they keep to themselves.

When Asha turns eighteen, she learns that she is adopted, and that her birth mother died of a mysterious illness when Asha was just a baby. Asha is devastated, and a chasm opens between her and her mother, Nandini.

Veena, a recent widow, wants nothing more than to secure a future for her daughter, Mala. This means keeping with Hindu traditions, such as an arranged marriage. Mala, on the other hand, is a woman trying to balance pleasing her mother and her family's traditions with her own modern ambitions.

How these women are connected will make you gasp.

Kushwaha has delivered a gift, and if this book hasn't already been on your radar, you should definitely put it there. She handles her subject with grace and care; the writing is poetic without being saccharine, and though you will weep, it doesn't dwell on sentimentality. These women will feel like your own mothers and sisters, and your very best friends. As each secret was revealed, and I started piecing together where each woman's story was heading, my heart was in my throat--it sounds like an exaggeration, but that's the power of the writing here. It sucks you in entirely.

What's also masterful about this story is it employs not only multiple points of view, but shifts from past to present. Under a lesser hand, it could be garbled and frustrating. I've read books like that--you're taken out of the story and you don't know who is what is where. Secret Lives is seamless.

Ok, so is there anything to criticize here? Yes--it ended! I desperately wanted to keep reading! But in all seriousness, this book is the perfect length. You never tire of any of it.

Indeed, this is literature at its finest: a story I wish I had written, a book I urge everyone to read. And I hope you will be as mesmerized as I was, filled with as much hope. These mothers and daughters could be any of us. Their struggles, their loves, their lives, our own.

Thank you, Ms. Kushwaha. This was a privilege to read.