Desirable Daughters: A Book Review

“Complicated” is the word that comes to mind as I read the concluding lines of the book Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee. There is no denying that Bharati’s style is witty, intelligent, and detailed but also complex.

The plot revolves around three Bengali sisters who have adopted different life-styles. Tara, the protagonist is in her late 30s and is a divorced Indian woman with a teenager son with same-sex orientation. She is the youngest of the three sisters. The plot starts to thicken when readers are disclosed about a scandal from the oldest sister’s younger days. She had been an unwed mother and the non-existent nephew comes on Tara’s doorsteps. Only, the nephew is an imposter, a criminal who we later found out has killed the real nephew. With an expectation that the plot will revolve around the plight of this young man and somehow a mystery will unfold I went on. Alas! That did not happen. The book remains tight with the Bhatacharjee sister- the desirable daughters as the title of the novel proclaims. And still the plot seems so scattered as if trying to bring forth many nuances with a single color on the palette. Many a times Bharati gets back to the central theme of the novel, which reignites the interest. The next paragraph then delves into a tangential matter in a manner that alienates the reader from- what happened before or was going to happen next. It seemed as if Bharati had too much to tell and she chose a single platform to do so. She seemed to get back every now and then to what the reader would be looking for and then choose that platform to elaborate on the Indian immigrants’ or Indian culture, her rich ex-husband, her sisters and their lives. Her references to the Indian communities was accurate her use of phrases such as –Smug Indian Housewives Club so apt that it was humorous.

Bharati surely has wit, which comes out very well in this novel. Her playful sarcasm at the artificiality and boastfulness of Indians tickles the senses. Still a congruent flow is what I expect from the books I read. I want them to tell me the story from the heart, climb up my mind, and make me think. The book succeeded in neither. What amazes me that I still finished the book, of course I skipped through many boring parts. I think Bharati managed to tell the tale intermittently, while she managed to blow-up her inner thoughts continuously. But I have to tell you that it was the brief lapse into the storyline that made me read the book until the end. Although, I must say that, even with a lack of definite storyline, the book did do justice to its title- Desirable Daughters. I must also mention that the last chapter was almost spiritual and might have been the best in the book. Will I recommend it? For the vocabulary- yes, for original style of writing- yes. For the plot- No! I guess the answer in the end is –No because a book is a book only for the story it can tell.