Honor
“A woman can live in one of two houses — fear or love. It is impossible to live in both at the same time.”
I loved Honor (Algonquin Books), an emotional, thought-provoking story, and the incredible writing of the author, Thrity Umrigar.
Smita Agarwal, an Indian American reporter from Brooklyn cuts her vacation short to travel to Mumbai as a favor to her friend Shannon, a South Asian correspondent. Shannon needs surgery and wants Smita to take over coverage of an important legal story she is working on, so Shannon’s friend Mohan, a native of India, volunteers to escort Smita to villages around Mumbai as she does research and conducts interviews in preparation.
The investigation is about Meena, a Hindu woman who went against her religion and married the love of her life, Abdul Mustafa, a Muslim man. Her brothers strongly believed she brought shame to their family. To show loyalty to Hinduism and with the support of their community, they set Meena and Abdul’s hut on fire with the couple inside. Abdul burned to his death and Meena, pregnant at the time, suffered horrible injuries. Currently, Meena, disfigured and feeling hopeless, lives with her daughter in a hut adjacent to Abdul’s mother. Meena has no parents, her brothers want her dead and her mother-in-law blames her for the death of her son. So when she was approached by a feminist lawyer wanting to help punish her brothers, Meena agreed to prosecute, feeling she had a responsibility to speak out, set an example, stand up for women’s rights.
Is honor worth killing for? Dying for? How far is far enough to go to stand up for what you believe in? And how does love, responsibility and community impact life decisions?
In Honor, Meena’s fight for justice is enhanced by Smita’s internal battles; she works through her feeling about India, the beautiful country where she lived as a child, its corruption and imbalance of power, sacrifices her father made long ago, and her growing relationship with Mohan. There is so much to think about and learn when it comes to women’s rights, religion, hierarchy, status and wealth in India, and of course, the universal power of love. From the setting to the deep characters and the highly-anticipated court case, this was an emotional and all-absorbing beautiful novel. (And Reese Witherspoon’s January book club pick!) I loved this book and highly recommend it.
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