This is a departure from my usual reads. It's a novel about sisters from India - one in California, one in New Jersey and one in Calcutta and culture clashes and meshes. ( )

A rich and suspenseful novel of the eternal pull of Indian tradition on contemporary life.

This book is sorta bizarre with all of its subplots and unconventional characters. Part of me thinks that there was just too much going on, and then another part of me kinda enjoyed that. I started this book expecting it to be another cultural/generational gap, traditional expectations not met kind of book. It definitely has those elements in it, but there's so much more. Bombay gangs and people who may or may not be who they say they are! I guess my only complaint is that , with so much going on, it was not as coherent as it could have been. I looked through a few of the other reviews here, and I'm not sure why some people disliked all of the characters ... it didn't have that effect on me at all. Sure, some of the characters are exaggerated in their abilities/good looks/charms, but I got used to that after the first chapter and enjoyed the rest of the story, even sympathizing with a lot of the characters. ( )

This beautifully written, even if somewhat meandering, novel explores the lives of three very different sisters from the point-of-view of the youngest sister. Tara Bhattarcharjee Chatterjee, a divorced mother trying to find her identity as an East Indian in suburban California, is shocked when a stranger shows up at her home claiming to be the nephew she never knew she had. Feeling like the slighted youngest sister kept out of family secrets, Tara re-examines her relationship with her two older sisters. Meanwhile, she is also dealing with her relationships with her teenaged son, ex-husband, and live-in lover as well as her love-hate relationships with her country of origin (India) and country of residence (America). Interwoven with all this is family history going back several generations. With so many threads, not every one can be fully developed to its greatest potential, which is one fault in this book (the other being that it took a little while to get in to). Overall, the book is an interesting exploration of how complicated people (and families) are, written in high literary form, with a detailed look at another culture to boot. ( )

Three daughters were born to a Brahmin family in Calcutta, each exactly three years apart. But although they share the same beautiful features and sharp minds, their lives followed different paths. Transplanted to California, the youngest sister, Tara Chatterjee, alternates between despondency that she did not live up to cultural expections and a rebellious defensiveness that the present is not the past. When a young man arrives at her door claiming to be the illegitimate son of her eldest sister, Tara Chatterjee quickly learns the past was not what she thought it was. As her investigation turns dangerous, she uncovers not only family secrets but also rediscovers her ex-husband, her son, and herself. Tara’s quest for the truth will take her back to India, where she will decide upon a new future writing about the past and Tara Lata, the Tree Bride, for whom she was named. Mukherjee continues Tara’s story in The Tree Bride.