The Lowland 
by Jhumpa Lahiri

Welcome back to India! The Princeton Walk book club has read several books set in India - Beyond the Beautiful Forevers and The Space Between Us.

This book is set partially in India.  Subhash and Udayan were brothers very close in age but very different in temperment.  Subhash ends up coming to Rhode Island to go to school. Udayan is killed as a revolutionary in India. His wife, Guari, ends up marrying Subhash and moving to the US.

Jumpha Lahiri was born in London and raised in the US.  She also wrote The Namesake.  (Highly recommended by the book club!) She's a Pulitzer Prize winner.

The theme of guilt is pervasive in the book. Guilt follows Subhash around his life. 

Ratings:
We rated this book the usual 4.5 stars.  Ha! In between "I wouldn't have picked it, but I am glad that I read it," and "I would recommend it to a friend." 

Character Development:  We thought the character of Subhash was well-developed.  Cheryl commented that the character of Udayan was lacking....we weren't sure what led to his development as a terrorist.  

Plot: We thought that the author handled the jumping back and forth between setting and times.  Some times it was hard to figure out at the beginning of the chapter who was talking - we had to read a page or two to figure out who was talking and what was going on.

Themes:  "Parenthood" was a theme.  Subhash was the real parent to Bela, while Guari and Udayan were the  biological parents. There was a lot of sadness, grief and depression in this book.