Oleander Girl: A Novel
*Starred Review* Orphaned at birth, Korobi (Bengali for “oleander”) always wondered why her mother named her after a beautiful but poisonous plant. By the dramatic conclusion of this utterly transfixing novel, she finds out, and we are left whirling in the wake of Divakaruni’s (One Amazing Thing, 2010) newest penetrating tale. An entrancing storyteller with an unerring moral compass, Divakaruni has created a superbly well-plotted, charming, yet hard-hitting novel of family, marriage, and class, a veritable Indian Jane Austen novel spiked with racial prejudice and religious violence. Raised in Kolkata by her sweet if burdened grandmother and her grandfather, a famous and irascible lawyer, Korobi is a modest, smart, and unworldly college student when she meets wealthy, stylish, and jaded Rajat. Much to the surprise of his high-society friends and the horror of his megarich ex-lover, Rajat proposes to quiet, unhip Korobi, who feels as though she has stepped into a fairy tale, cuing us to expect tragedy. But there is no anticipating the complexities and implications of the crises and obstacles Korobi and Rajat face in light of Korobi’s resolute quest for the truth about her father as she journeys across harshly xenophobic post-9/11 America. From baneful secrets, poisonous misunderstandings and conflicts, and transcendent love, Divakaruni has forged another tender, wise, and resonant page-turner. --Donna Seaman