THE RICE MOTHER
Rani Manicka
Penguin Books
Fiction
ISBN: 0142004545

Promised in marriage at 14, Lakshmi must leave the comfort of her village in Ceylon with her new husband. Sailing to Malaysia with this older man she has just met, Lakshmi is forced to quickly grow up and become a woman, wife, stepmother and homemaker. So begins Rani Manicka's rich debut novel. THE RICE MOTHER is the story of Lakshmi, her children, grandchildren and great-granddaughter --- their lives, struggles and subtle triumphs. It is the story, especially, of four generations of women. From Lakshmi to her great-granddaughter Nisha, the novel follows the family and all of its strong personalities across Malaysia, through World War II and the Japanese occupation, past violence, drug abuses, marriages, births, losses and family secrets.

Lakshmi builds a life with her husband, Ayah, and they have five children together. But Lakshmi is still bitter because her husband is not as rich as his family had claimed. Ayah is a passive and gentle man who lets her run the household and raise the children according to her own desires. Fiercely proud and often selfish, Lakshmi never succeeds in treating her children equally or her husband fairly. It is only as she grows older that she discovers she had grown to love Ayah at all. Her children are affected by the tensions present in the house, and as each grows up they chose a variety of ways to respond to their mother. Lakshmi's oldest children, twins Lakshmnan and Mohini, are the most developed and dynamic. Lakshmi loves these two for their beauty and potential, but each breaks her heart in very different ways. The story is carried through Lakshmnan's line, and the tensions between his wife, Rani, and his mother are staggering. In fact, the relationships between mothers and daughters-in-law provide much of the novel's emotional action.

Ultimately, Lakshmi's ambitions for herself, her children and her family are never realized. What is left instead is a painful family history caught on audiotape and a great granddaughter left to grapple with the truths about her family and its matriarchs. Lakshmi and Ayah's family is deeply scarred, and Manicka is wise in choosing not to tidy things up for the reader. She does, however, at the end introduce a device to explain the family's bad luck, in the form of a stolen statue of Kuan Yin --- this may not be convincing for discerning readers.

Written from many points of view, in the voice of many of the family members, THE RICE MOTHER is at times confusing. This is an overly complex novel despite the fairly commonplace themes, and that complexity occasionally overshadows the story itself. Manicka's details are quite precise but, in the end, don't always transport the reader. Sometimes the story is just too big and cluttered. Still, as a tale of women and family patterns, THE RICE MOTHER is successful, and this is a promising debut. Manicka's voice is strongest in presenting the sadness and loneliness of characters, and in the beauty and culture of South Asia.

   --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

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