Amit Majmudar

Being a granddaughter of Italian immigrants, I am drawn to stories of the immigrant experience and the connections between the generations so I was thrilled to receive the advance reader's copy of The Abundance. I am not overly familiar with the Indian culture so I looked forward to spending a few days immersed in the story. I found the portrayal of these immigrant parents and their children very touching and real.
Narrated in the first person by the immigrant mother, I felt like I was in show more her head and in her heart as she navigated the last months of her life connecting and reconnecting with her two children. A victim of cancer, she tries valiantly not to impose her illness on her children. Their desire to be with her during this time presented the opportunity to bond in a new way. With her daughter, the bonding occurred over food...the passing on of traditional recipes as they cooked together in the kitchen. While there were moments of tension and discord, underneath was the deep love that existed between them. When I realized that the mother was dying I thought it might be a downer book...but not so. It is not a book about dying, but rather a book about living. show less

"If there is one thing dangerously abundant right now, it is certainty. Certainty makes possible in men the most extreme good and the most extreme evil. A land like the Punjab, five rivers and three faiths, could do with a little less certainty." (page 159)

This is a fascinating book about a subject I don’t know very much about – the partition of India in 1947 and the creation of Pakistan. Majmudar tells three stories which parallel the story of Partition and its attendant displacement, show more fear, violence and loss. There are the twin Hindu boys who are separated from their mother while fleeing what has become the Muslim state of Pakistan; a young Sikh girl who escapes the death planned for her by her own family to prevent her being shamed by the marauding gangs; and an old Muslim doctor who sees his clinic destroyed by Hindu gangs and starts the trek to Pakistan on foot to start anew. As these tales unwind, we are also provided some back-story which provided insight into different kinds of partition within these lives and their families, faiths and communities.

"How little we know each other, though for centuries our homes had shared walls. How little we will learn, now that all we share is a border." (page 97)

This is a harrowing read, with a lot of implicit and explicit violence. It’s also suspenseful, as the reader senses that these three narratives are going to converge, and hopeful in its resolution. It does suffer, in parts, from over-writing (especially in the beginning), but it still grabbed me right away. Overall, a strong debut novel; I hope to see more in the future from Majmudar. show less

On August 15, 1947, British India became partitioned into two states: the Dominion of Pakistan (which then included modern day Bangladesh) and the Union of India. The birth pangs of these two nation states were violent and sectarian, displacing 12-14 million people, and killing hundreds of thousands. As Muslims headed one way across the new border into Pakistani territory, Hindus and Sikhs fled in the opposite direction. Atrocities were committed on all sides, and even neighbors and friends show more grew suspicious, if not outright hostile. The effects of this volatile partition are still felt today in the hostility between the two countries.

In this, his first novel, Amit Majmudar seeks to personalize this enormous tragedy by focusing on the fates of a few: Shankar and Keshav, two Hindu twins, who become separated from their mother while trying to cross the border; a young Sikh girl named Simran, whose father would rather see her dead than dishonored; and a Muslim pediatrician, Ibrahim Masud, who quietly continues to treat the needy without reference to their religion. It is a novel of great beauty and power. Majmudar is a poet, and the images he creates with his words are at once sad and hopeful, sweet and brutal. Although a difficult book to read, it is an important one for giving insight into the mindset that creates revenge and generational conflict.

…for all his personal loyalty to Dr. Masud, there is a part of Gul Singh, too, that believes what is happening is necessary. Some killing must be done. It is a form of communication, the only kind that can cross the partitions between this country and its neighbor, between this world and the next. Their enemies must hear the deaths and know fear; their dead must hear the deaths and know rest.

Highly recommended. show less

I really enjoyed this—Majmudar isn't a flashy writer, but his prose is smooth, his dialogue realistic, and the novel as a whole does an excellent job at exploring familial dynamics. The unnamed narrator is an older Indian-American immigrant, slowly dying of cancer; she has a tense relationship with her overachieving daughter; her son holds himself apart, trying to be 'Ron' instead of 'Ronak'; her husband loves her but has never had to think about stepping outside the gender roles to which show more he is accustomed. I was especially impressed with how Majmudar—who is male—managed to capture a mother-daughter relationship, with all its guilts and fights about things big and small, so effectively. I also liked how The Abundance avoids both cloying reconciliations or jarring angst; it makes it seem that much more realistic because of it. show less