Family Matters

Set in Bombay in the mid-1990s, Family Matters tells a story of familial love and obligation, of personal and political corruption, of the demands of tradition and the possibilities for compassion. Nariman Vakeel, the patriarch of a small discordant family, is beset by Parkinson’s and haunted by memories of his past. He lives with his two middle-aged stepchildren, Coomy, bitter and domineering, and her brother, Jal, mild-mannered and acquiescent. But the burden of the illness worsens the already strained family relationships. Soon, their sweet-tempered half-sister, Roxana, is forced to assume sole responsibility for her bedridden father. And Roxana’s husband, besieged by financial worries, devises a scheme of deception involving his eccentric employer at a sporting goods store, setting in motion a series of events that leads to the narrative’s moving outcome. Family Matters has all the richness, the gentle humour, and the narrative sweep that have earned Mistry the highest of accolades around the world.

From the Hardcover edition.

Annotation

Shortlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize.

Editorial Reviews

Warm, humane, tender and bittersweet are not the words one would expect to describe a novel that portrays a society where the government is corrupt, the standard of living is barely above poverty level and religious, ethnic and class divisions poison the community. Yet Mistry's compassionate eye and his ability to focus on the small decencies that maintain civilization, preserve the family unit and even lead to happiness attest to his masterly skill as a writer who makes sense of the world by using laughter, as one of his characters observes. Bombay in the mid-1990s, a once-elegant city in the process of deterioration, is mirrored in the physical situation of elderly retired professor Nariman Vakeel, whose body is succumbing to the progressive debilitation of Parkinson's disease. Nariman's apartment, which he shares with his two resentful, middle-aged stepchildren, is also in terrible disrepair. But when an accident forces him to recuperate in the tortuously crowded apartment that barely accommodates his daughter Roxana, her husband and two young boys, family tensions are exacerbated and the limits of responsibility and obligation are explored with a full measure of anguish. In the ensuing situation, everyone's behavior deteriorates, and the affecting secret of Nariman's thwarted lifetime love affair provides a haunting leitmotif. Light moments of domestic interaction, a series of ridiculous comic situations, ironic juxtapositions and tenderly observed human eccentricities provide humorous relief, as the author of A Fine Balance again explores the tightrope act that constitutes life on this planet. Mistry is not just a fiction writer; he's a philosopher who finds meaning -- indeed, perhaps a divine plan -- in small human interactions. This beautifully paced, elegantly expressed novel is notable for the breadth of its vision as well as its immensely appealing characters and enticing plot. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

About The Author:

About The Author:

Rohinton Mistry has not lived in his native India for many years; but like many expatriate writers, he continues a relationship with his country in his writings and has enriched his readers understanding of it. In his first two novels, Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance, Mistry set his humorous, heartrending, Dickensian view of Bombay under the shadow of tumult under Indira Ghandi s rule in the 1970s. Four years after publishing a collection of stories, Swimming Lessons: And Other Stories from Firozsha Baag in 1987, Mistry released his first novel. Such a Long Journey, which follows a bank clerk s unwitting descent into corrupt political dealings in 1971 Bombay, was short-listed for the Booker prize and won Canada s Governor General s Award. Next came A Fine Balance, Mistry s sweeping story of four strangers forced into sharing an apartment in 1975 Bombay. Again the Booker short list, and top Canadian honor the Giller Prize.

The selection...

Name:Rohinton Mistry

Current Home:Toronto, Canada

Place of Birth:Bombay, India

Education:B. S. in mathematics and economics, University of Bombay; B.A. in English and philosophy, University of Toronto, 1983

Awards:Governor General's Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Such a Long Journey, 1991; Commonwealth Writers Prize and Giller Prize for A Fine Balance, 1995

Biography

Rohinton Mistry has not lived in his native India for many years; but like many expatriate writers, he continues a relationship with his country in his writings and has enriched his readers understanding of it. In his first two novels, Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance, Mistry set his humorous, heartrending, Dickensian view of Bombay under the shadow of tumult under Indira Ghandi s rule in the 1970s.

Four years after publishing a collection of stories, Swimming Lessons: And Other Stories from Firozsha Baag in 1987, Mistry released his first novel. Such a Long Journey, which follows a bank clerk s unwitting descent into corrupt political dealings in 1971 Bombay, was short-listed for the Booker prize and won Canada s Governor General s Award. Next came A Fine Balance, Mistry s sweeping story of four strangers forced into sharing an apartment in 1975 Bombay. Again the Booker short list, and top Canadian honor the Giller Prize.

The selection of A Fine Balance for Oprah s Book Club in 2001 changed the nature of Mistry s career, as it has for many authors. While already respected, he had now earned a recognition with a new readership in the hundreds of thousands a readership that was by and large unlikely to pick up a sprawling book set in 1970s India. Mistry told the show, [India] remains my focus and makes it all worthwhile because of the people their capacity for laughter, their capacity to endure .Perhaps my main intention in writing this novel was to look at history from the bottom up.

As a result of the Oprah publicity, a greater weight of expectation may have rested on Mistry s third novel than it might have otherwise; this is true not only because of the increased pairs of eyes on Mistry s work, but because he is a writer who is clearly still evolving. His earlier books encountered some criticism for heavyhandedness, particularly where the injection of political and social commentary were concerned. In 2002 s Family Matters, Mistry moves away from a charged national backdrop and focuses more on family politics, though his keen observance of Indian culture remains a strong element. Charting the effects of one partriarch s physical decline on his extended family, Family Matters moves forward in Bombay time to the mid-1990s and uses the Vakeel clan as a lens through which the author views (critically) religious fundamentalism.

Mistry s consistent performance as a novelist, and ever growing awareness of his talents among American readers, promises a long and fruitful career. One Atlantic reviewer, beginning a review of Family Matters, put it this way: [Mistry] has long been recognized as one of the best Indian writers; he ought to be considered simply one of the best writers, Indian or otherwise, now alive.

Good To Know

Although he left India in 1975 and does not often go back, Mistry told a British magazine that he feels no hindrance in writing about his home country. "So far I have had no difficulty writing about it, even though I have been away for so long," he said. "All fiction relies on the real world in the sense that we all take in the world through our five senses and we accumulate details, consciously or subconsciously. This accumulation of detail can be drawn on when you write fiction..."

After emigrating to Toronto in 1975, Mistry got a job as a bank clerk and ascended to the supervisor of customer service after a few years. His dissatisfaction in the job led to his taking classes in English, first at York College, and ultimately pursuing a degree part-time at the University of Toronto.

Mistry had no ambitions to be a writer until he got to Canada and began taking classes in literature at the University of Toronto. Encouraged by his wife, he set out to win a university literary contest by writing his first short story. He called in sick from work, devoted several days to the story, entered it, and won the contest.