The Lowland by Jhumpi Lahiri

 

Two brothers, Subhash and Udayan, grow up in a poorer section of Mumbai.  Subhash is the older but Udayan is the leader, taking them on adventures on the lowland past the ponds and having them sneak into the private club located there.  As the boys grow, they start to move apart.  Subhash is determined to go to America to get his education while Udayan become embroiled in one of the groups who are pushing for revolution in India.

Subhash ends up in Rhode Island.  He is happy there and wonders if he will ever return to India until he gets the message; Udayan is dead.  He rushes home to find that Udayan was killed by the government as a terrorist and his wife is left behind, pregnant and scorned by his parents with whom she lives.  He marries Udayan's former wife and takes her to America.  But the marriage never works although Subhash desperately loves the child they have.

The novel follows the lives of these three, Subhash, his wife and their daughter.  There is love between him and the daughter but the wife seems to care little about either of them and eventually leaves to make her own life.  

This book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award.  Lahiri is of Indian background although she was born in London and raised in Rhode Island.  She has written several novels and anthologies of the Indian experience, both in that country and as immigrants to others.  This book explores the relationship between siblings as well as that between husband and wife and parent and child.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.