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    Abundance
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    Abundance
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    Abundance
    Ebook275 pages5 hours

    Abundance

    By Amit Majmudar

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Mala and Ronak are adults now. They've married, begun their own families and moved away from the suffocating world of their first generation immigrant parents. But when they learn their mother has only months to live, the focus of their world returns to her home. Having shown little interest in the Indian cuisine they eat at every gathering, Mala decides to master the recipes her mother learned at her own mother's knee. And as they cook together, mother and daughter begin to confront the great divisions of their lives, and finally heal their fractured relationship. But when Ronak comes up with a plan to memorialise his mother, the hard-won peace between them is tested to its limits. Written with tenderness and wry compassion, Amit Majmudar has captured anew the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOneworld Publications
    Release dateJan 5, 2013
    ISBN9781780742694
    Unavailable
    Abundance
    Author

    Amit Majmudar

    Amit Majmudar is a poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and the former first Poet Laureate of Ohio. Among his books are the poetry collection What He Did in Solitary and Black Avatar and Other Essays. He has also published a translation from the Sanskrit, Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary. He works as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist and lives in Westerville, Ohio with his wife and three children.

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    Reviews for Abundance

    4/5

    42 ratings17 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The Abundance is told from the point of view of an Indian immigrant to the United States who is dying from cancer. Throughout the book, she tells of her present reality and also reflects on her life and her relationships with her children. As a way of bonding, she teaches her daughter, who has never been interested in cooking, how to cook traditional Indian dishes.The book moved me to tears several times. The reflections on love and family, both the good and the bad, were very powerful.
    • 4/5
      A beautifully written story of an Indian woman, living in America, facing a cancer diagnosis and how she chooses to live the last months of her life. The male author succeeds in getting inside the mind of the female main character, as she navigates her relationships with her husband, daughter, son and daughter-in-law. Food plays a central role in the way she nurtures her family. There are many touching moments and realistic tensions. The ending is almost too poetic; I wished for more resolution and clarity.
    • 4/5
      A mother is diagnosed with cancer, and her two adult children are forced to confront the possibility of her death. This is a novel that explores the interactions of family--the conflicts, the love, the competition, the food. I enjoyed the mother's voice as the narrator and the lush descriptions of food.
    • 4/5
      This is the second of the author's books I have reviewed and again give it very high marks. From my own personal experiences as a daughter (and daughter-in-law), wife, mother, and grandmother, I found it interesting how similar the situations and experiences of the family are to my own -- despite coming from a totally different religious and ethnic heritage. The book shows how similar life experiences are across cultures. I applaud Majmudar for writing yet another book that deftly explores cultural dynamics and family emotions. (NOTE: I do wish some of the recipes the daughter was compiling had been an appendix to the book!) I highly recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! It's beautifully written, very easy to relate to the characters. Although I am not Indian, I could feel the universality of family relationships portrayed in the book. Given the subject matter, it could have been a depressing book, but the author succeeded in making it a compelling read. I couldn't put it down. I would highly recommend this book, and I think it would be an excellent choice for book discussion groups.
    • 5/5
      When getting a book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers, there is always that apprehension - what if the book is "so-so" and would require a "so-so" review... You have to be truthful, even while appreciating the generosity of the publishers....Thankfully, with this book, I didn't have to worry: it captivated me from the start and got deep under my skin. Not a happy story, but by the time you are done reading, you realize that it's not a depressing one, either. Terminal illness, reminiscences of the life passed and its predicaments, wondering whether priorities were fair, rekindling the relationship with grown children before it's too late, and also the parallel theme of imparting cooking skills to the daughter in the last months of the heroine's life - there wasn't a false note in the whole book, every gesture had a powerful meaning.It amazed me that a male author can write with such unique eloquence from the point view of a woman. Amit Majmudar is not a professional writer, but a radiologist - and yet talent is talent!... Though not a thriller, the novel was hard to put down. It took me by surprise that I could relate to it on so many levels. It brought me to tears countless number of times, the story often poignant to insanity, but more than that - it taught me more than one lesson. Surrounded by love during her last days, the protagonist remarks with sad irony that "dying is a kind of royalty", and while she pays her bills she is using "forever" stamps - another little irony of life... But the author assures: this is "not a book about dying, but about life" - which, in fact, is totally true if you come to think about it.One more point: to really appreciate this book it helps if one has a connection - like I happen to have - to Indian immigrant community here in U.S. Only then you can truly grasp certain subtle points and nuances of the narrative... Also, I will not hesitate at all to place this book on the same high level as Jhumpa Lahiri's "Namesake" and Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger".
    • 4/5
      This book has gotten a lot of praise from LTers, and while I liked it well enough, I'm not quite as enthusiastic. There's something rather precious and emotionally manipulative about it. That may not bother some readers, but it does bother me; I want to be genuinely moved by a book, not manipulated. In some ways, of course, the story of a woman dying of cancer can't help but wring one's emotions, but still . . . The central storyline revolves around the narrator, an Indian immigrant to the US, attempting to strengthen the bonds with her two Americanized adult children in the final months of her life. Her daughter Mala, a doctor, flies home for long weekends, caring for and cooking with her mother. One of her goals is to learn how to make all of her mother's specialities and to write down the recipes; she is also writing a diary of their time together. Ronak (or Ron), a financial wizard who has married outside of the Indian culture and all but rejected it, visits less often, but enough to appear dutiful. He causes a brief crisis when he proposes selling a cookbook--along with the 'hook,' the story of the estranged daughter-dying mother reunion.Maybe it's because I went through this experience with my own mother, but I found the narrator almost too perfect and self-sacrificing to be real. She puts off telling her adult children and everyone else for as long as possible. She accepts but won't ask for help. She never complains. She makes excuses for her distant, uninvolved husband. She seems to have expectations for her children but won't voice them. I would say that perhaps this is just the way traditional Indian women act when they are seriously ill--except that we get quite another view in the flashbacks of the narrator taking care of her mother and mother-in-law in their final illnesses.As others have mentioned, Majmudar does an admirable job of creating a voice for his female narrator, and there are indeed some touching moments in The Abundance. I also give him credit for writing a book that couldn't be more different from his first, Partitions, which focused on the chaos and atrocities surrounding the division of India and Pakistan. Too often writers allow themselves to get pigeonholed, but that isn't the case here.
    • 3/5
      When a woman is diagnosed with terminal cancer, memories of the past, especially that of her children evolution from toddlers to adults flood back. As her children spend more time with her, Mala discovers how cooking with her mother and learning her recipes has given her the haven in which talk and share their own personal time. Ronak has been too detached from his family and what he deems to be the perfect plan threatens instead to cast him further away.This is a story of family, the resilience of love and in times of a crisis, the strength of their bond.
    • 5/5
      I thought this was just an exceptionally beautiful, sensitive and honest novel about a family on the brink of losing its nucleus, i.e., Mother (who is diagnosed with cancer at the onset of the story). I was ready to bristle at a male author taking on the perspective of an older woman (in first person, no less!), but he did so wonderfully. Although this is an Indian novel in many ways, the feelings, both good and bad, could be any family that struggles with the modernization and changes of each generation. The tension between the characters, mostly the grown daughter Mala and her Mother, are spare perfection, and I think we all have felt those feelings, or witnessed that kind of familial discord a time or 20. But what shines is the love. At the end of the day, the family pulls together and focuses on why they love each other, quirks and all. Highly recommended, especially if you like a family drama that stands above many out there today. And although the subject matter is sad, it is not a depressing novel. It is hopeful. But real.
    • 4/5
      Being a granddaughter of Italian immigrants, I am drawn to stories of the immigrant experience and the connections between the generations so I was thrilled to receive the advance reader's copy of The Abundance. I am not overly familiar with the Indian culture so I looked forward to spending a few days immersed in the story. I found the portrayal of these immigrant parents and their children very touching and real. Narrated in the first person by the immigrant mother, I felt like I was in her head and in her heart as she navigated the last months of her life connecting and reconnecting with her two children. A victim of cancer, she tries valiantly not to impose her illness on her children. Their desire to be with her during this time presented the opportunity to bond in a new way. With her daughter, the bonding occurred over food...the passing on of traditional recipes as they cooked together in the kitchen. While there were moments of tension and discord, underneath was the deep love that existed between them. When I realized that the mother was dying I thought it might be a downer book...but not so. It is not a book about dying, but rather a book about living.
    • 3/5
      I don't know, y'all -- lately I am having such trouble finding readable contemporary Indian-American fiction. So many tend to have so many layers that it is nearly impossible to tie all the threads together into a cohesive, comprehendable story. Such is the case with The Abundance by Majmudar. While the plot is something I feel many of us could grapple with (mother diagnosed with cancer, adult children), the total immersion into who-sis and what-sis without explanation was baffling to me. I have read Indian-American fiction that does an excellent job of capturing the convulated familial ties without confusing a reader who is not from such families. I wish those writers would come back!
    • 4/5
      A moving and bittersweet story of mothers, their children and second generation immigrants. When their mother is diagnosed with cancer, both children and their families, find their mothers in different ways. The daughter Mala, has always had somewhat of a contentious relationship with her mother but mother and daughter heal their relationship by cooking together. In the kitchen they become the friends they always wanted to be, bonding over the cooking of Indian food. The difference in the ethnic outlook of the parents, are contrasted with the difficulty of the son and daughter trying to fit in their new culture while the parents try to teach them the old. Parents, children sandwiched between taking care of their parents while trying to raise their own children are one the themes of this novel. Well written, fresh voiced about the cultural divide and family relationships. One of the things I was most impressed about was that the mother, whose voice we hear, is written by a male author and he has done quite well.
    • 5/5
      Told through the eyes of a mother facing a terminal illness, this is beautiful story of family relationships. I appreciated the insight into the ways that the couple has changed during their time in America and the ways they are still drawn to traditional customs. The idea that the mother and daughter use cooking as a way to deal with the illness was so moving, and made me want to get Indian food! I highly recommend this to readers of domestic stories.
    • 5/5
      Mala and Ronak’s mother has a secret. She has terminal cancer. However is does not want her children to know as she does not want to ruin their visit home. She does not do a good job of hiding her secret. Once Mala and Ronak find out, they decide to spend more time with their mother. For Mala this means learning how to cook traditional Indian food. For Ronak, he pays a crew to plant his mother’s garden as she can not get out to do it herself. I have not read Mr. Majmudar’s Partitions, however after reading this book I will check it out. I absolutely loved, loved this book. Yes, I said loved twice. I could not read this book fast enough. This book is about family, love, friendship, food, and a happy ending. All filled with an intriguing cast of characters. My favorite person however is Mala and Ronak’s mother. She was kind and had such a caring heart. Even with her dying of terminal cancer she still put her family first. I thought that I would not like Mala in the beginning because she did have a bit of an edge to her but luckily it did not last long. Mala turned out to be a better mother to her two children due to her own mother and how close they became. All the yummy foods that they cooked together had my mouth watering. If books had smell-o-vision then I would be in trouble. I would have to make sure that I did not eat the book. Both Ronak and Mala and Ronak’s father were caring and warm-hearted. It was so easy to fall in love with everyone. The ending put a big smile on my face. The Abundance is filled with happiness, love, great food, loving characters, and a pinch of spice to make the right recipe for a best seller!
    • 3/5
      I liked this book, but didn’t love it. The novel explores family dynamics when the mother of two adult children is diagnosed with terminal cancer. It’s readable, does a good job of portraying the layers of love, insecurities and competition that exist in families.(Read as part of the early reviewer program.)
    • 5/5
      “The Abundance” by Amit MajmudarIn this beautiful/sad book Amit Majmudar takes its readers into the home of an unusual family at a time of crisis.The “I” of the text is a woman. Her voice and those of her family blend with the thoughts she reveals in the text: opinions she stifles, family history that enriches our understanding of the “now” we are watching unfold. She is a brave person.Her husband and her children are supportive, despite problems of their own;grandkids supply distractions. Food:its preparation and consumption,is as much a character as are the people.(“At home, when I made corn, we rubbed each length with a lemon wedge dipped in chili powder and salt. All they had here was butter, salt, and pepper.”) The four pages of notes I made while reading remind me of the moments I found most compelling. It is, however,the book’s final scene that I will cherish. I thank Amit Majmudar for his portrait of a valiant woman and her husband and family.
    • 5/5
      The Abundance by Amit Majmudar is a beautifully written book about a mother dying and the effect of the experience on her husband and her children. The author has demonstrated such a tremendous sensitivity that makes you forget that the mother’s character is written by a man.The mother really wants a celebration of life instead of discussing her coming death. She loves it so much, she loves music, art, books and cooking, especially cooking. She wants to keep on loving life as long as she is alive. The kitchen is her empire. She could have completed her education and become a doctor but cooking was so natural to her and a big way of showing her love to her family. A good bit of the book expresses that and now I regret that I did not have time in the past to go with an Indian friend to the grocery and learn how to cook some Indian foods. That sadness was hanging around me as I read this book. I want to make the mother’s stuffed eggplants!Mala, her daughter who has always tried so hard for her mother’s love by being perfect, she felt in competition with her mother’s love with her brother Ronak. She works hard and becomes a doctor. The two are prone to quarrels with each other but that may be that they are alike. Ronak, the son does not follow the rules and has a finance career which is completely different from what his parents wanted but they still love him. The spouses are a part of this book too and I see myself akin to Amber, Ronak’s wife! The portrayal of Abhi was surprising rich with layers. He loves numbers as much as my husband! In fact, I could see my husband showing his love in the same gentle ways as Abhi. Mala told her mother that she was lucky that not many arranged marriages turn out to be so loving. Love marriage or arranged marriage, her mother was indeed fortunate to be married to a man who cared deeply for her.I highly recommend this book to all who interested in good marriages and Asian Indian families