The Space Between Us: A Novel

by Thrity Umrigar

Overview

"This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay." --Washington Post Book World

"Bracingly honest." --New York Times Book Review

A beautifully designed Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition of Thrity Umrigar's critically acclaimed and bestselling novel--a luminous, unforgettable story of honor, tradition, class, gender, and family set in modern-day India.

The Space Between Us is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years. A powerful and perceptive literary masterwork, Umrigar's extraordinary novel demonstrates how the lives of the rich and poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and how the strong bonds of womanhood are eternally opposed by the divisions of class and culture. It is a story that echoes the timeless intensity of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible--a quintessential triumph of modern literary fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062067890
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/03/2011
Series:	Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.24(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Thrity Umrigar is the author of seven novels Everybody’s Son, The Story Hour, The World We Found, The Weight of Heaven, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time; a memoir, First Darling of the Morning; and a children’s picture book, When I Carried You in My Belly. A former journalist, she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard and was a finalist for the PEN Beyond Margins Award. A professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, she lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

Editorial Reviews

Thrity Umrigar has created two wonderfully sympathetic characters who do much to make [India’s] complex nature comprehensible.... This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay.... The life of the privileged is harshly measured against the life of the powerless, but empathy and compassion are evoked by both strong women, each of whom is forced to make a separate choice. Umrigar is a skilled storyteller, and her memorable characters will live on for a long time.

Frances Itani

With humanity and suspense, novelist Thrity Umrigar tackles love, loyalty, injustice - and survival.

Marie Claire

Umrigar renders a collection of compelling and complex characters, from kind, conflicted Sera to fiercely devoted Bhima. Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.

Booklist (starred review)

[The Space Between Us] is a great book; I love it.... I couldn’t stop reading until Bhima had her amazing epiphany of freedom at the edge of the sea. I am so happy for Thrity Umrigar! And proud of her as a woman, too.... It is so precious to have a book about a woman one rarely even “sees” in society, whether Indian or American.

Alice Walker on THE SPACE BETWEEN US

Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer.... Her portrait of Sera as a woman unable to transcend her middle-class skin feels bracingly honest.

New York Times Book Review

"Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate."

Booklist

Set in contemporary Bombay, Umrigar's second novel (Bombay Time, 2001) is an affecting portrait of a woman and her maid, whose lives, despite class disparity, are equally heartbreaking. Though Bhima has worked for the Dubash family for decades and is coyly referred to as "one of the family," she nonetheless is forbidden from sitting on the furniture and must use her own utensils while eating. For years, Sera blamed these humiliating boundaries on her husband Feroz, but now that he's dead and she's lady of the house, the two women still share afternoon tea and sympathy with Sera perched on a chair and Bhima squatting before her. Bhima is grateful for Sera, for the steady employment, for what she deems friendship and, mostly, for the patronage Sera shows Bhima's granddaughter Maya. Orphaned as a child when her parents died of AIDS, Bhima raised Maya and Sera saw to her education. Now in college, Maya's future is like a miracle to the illiterate Bhima-her degree will take them out of the oppressive Bombay slums, guaranteeing Maya a life away from servitude. But in a cruel mirror of Sera's happiness-her only child Dinaz is expecting her first baby-Bhima finds that Maya is pregnant, has quit school and won't name the child's father. As the situation builds to a crisis point, both women reflect on the sorrows of their lives. While Bhima was born into a life of poverty and insurmountable obstacles, Sera's privileged upbringing didn't save her from a husband who beat her and a mother-in-law who tormented her. And while Bhima's marriage begins blissfully, an industrial accident leaves her husband maimed and an alcoholic. He finally deserts her, but not before he bankrupts the family and kidnapstheir son. Though Bhima and Sera believe they are mutually devoted, soon decades of confidences are thrown up against the far older rules of the class game. A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power. Umrigar transcends the specifics of two Bombay women and creates a novel that quietly roars against tyranny.

Kirkus Reviews

Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer.... Her portrait of Sera as a woman unable to transcend her middle-class skin feels bracingly honest.” — New York Times Book Review

“[The Space Between Us] is a great book; I love it.... I couldn’t stop reading until Bhima had her amazing epiphany of freedom at the edge of the sea. I am so happy for Thrity Umrigar! And proud of her as a woman, too.... It is so precious to have a book about a woman one rarely even “sees” in society, whether Indian or American.” — Alice Walker on THE SPACE BETWEEN US

“Remarkable.... What makes The Space Between Us so engrossing is its ability to make readers feel empathy for its subjects.... To read Umrigar’s novel is to catch a glimpse of a foreign culture, for better and for worse. Yet while the class divide between Bhima and Sera provides much of the conflict in The Space Between Us, it isn’t the only source of disagreement. Class colors everything, but in the end, Umrigar shows, every one of life’s ups and downs are available to us all.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Thrity Umrigar has created two wonderfully sympathetic characters who do much to make [India’s] complex nature comprehensible.... This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay.... The life of the privileged is harshly measured against the life of the powerless, but empathy and compassion are evoked by both strong women, each of whom is forced to make a separate choice. Umrigar is a skilled storyteller, and her memorable characters will live on for a long time.” — Frances Itani, Washington Post Book World

“With humanity and suspense, novelist Thrity Umrigar tackles love, loyalty, injustice - and survival.” — Marie Claire

“Umrigar renders a collection of compelling and complex characters, from kind, conflicted Sera to fiercely devoted Bhima. Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Set in contemporary Bombay, Umrigar’s second novel is an affecting portrait of a woman and her maid, whose lives, despite class disparity, are equally heartbreaking.... A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power. Umrigar transcends the specifics of two Bombay women and creates a novel that quietly roars against tyranny.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Poignant.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Umrigar’s schematic novel illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay.... Umrigar’s writing achieves clarity.” — Publishers Weekly

“From page one, Thrity Umrigar’s novel thrusts us into a story that’s at once heartbreaking and soothing. Chronicling the tumultuous lives of two women, The Space Between Us doesn’t flinch from its scrutiny of human suffering; then it gently, gently guides us toward healing.” — Samrat Upadhyay, author of The Royal Ghosts

“A deeply affecting novel about a wealthy widow and her maid, who form a bond across the gulfs of class and status in modern-day Bombay.” — Life magazine

“Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Heartbreaking.... A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power... that quietly roars against tyranny.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Intimately and compassionately told.... Sensuous.... Umrigar’s memorable characters will live on for a long time.” — Frances Itani, Washington Post Book World

“Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer.” — New York Times Book Review

“[The Space Between Us] is provocative and disturbing.” — Boston Globe

“Umrigar is a highly skilled storyteller...the novel’s plot and depth of characterisation provide irresistible momentum.” — Time Out New York

“Umrigar’s imagery, gorgeous yet unflinching in its realism, creates a rich picture of Indian society in Bombay, from slum to skyscraper. Her symbolism is lovely.” — Charlotte Observer

"The Space Between Us is a novel that is hard to forget." — The Times (London)

From the Publisher

Remarkable.... What makes The Space Between Us so engrossing is its ability to make readers feel empathy for its subjects.... To read Umrigar’s novel is to catch a glimpse of a foreign culture, for better and for worse. Yet while the class divide between Bhima and Sera provides much of the conflict in The Space Between Us, it isn’t the only source of disagreement. Class colors everything, but in the end, Umrigar shows, every one of life’s ups and downs are available to us all.

San Francisco Chronicle

From page one, Thrity Umrigar’s novel thrusts us into a story that’s at once heartbreaking and soothing. Chronicling the tumultuous lives of two women, The Space Between Us doesn’t flinch from its scrutiny of human suffering; then it gently, gently guides us toward healing.

Samrat Upadhyay

Poignant.

Entertainment Weekly

Remarkable.... What makes The Space Between Us so engrossing is its ability to make readers feel empathy for its subjects.... To read Umrigar’s novel is to catch a glimpse of a foreign culture, for better and for worse. Yet while the class divide between Bhima and Sera provides much of the conflict in The Space Between Us, it isn’t the only source of disagreement. Class colors everything, but in the end, Umrigar shows, every one of life’s ups and downs are available to us all.

San Francisco Chronicle

[Umrigar] displays an impressive talent for conceiving multidimensional, sympathetic characters with life-like emotional quandaries and psychological stumbling blocks.

Washington Post Book World

Umrigar is a highly skilled storyteller...the novel’s plot and depth of characterisation provide irresistible momentum.

Time Out New York

[The Space Between Us] is provocative and disturbing.

Boston Globe

[A] powerful novel.

National Post (Canada)