Love Marriage: A Novel [Paperback]

V. V. Ganeshananthan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

In this globe-scattered Sri Lankan family, we speak of only two kinds of marriage. The first is the Arranged Marriage. The second is the Love Marriage. In reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first toward the second. [p. 3]

The daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, Yalini finds herself caught between the traditions of her ancestors and the lure of her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, Yalini is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.

While Kumaran's loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family's roots-and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils-through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran's death and his daughter's politically motivated nuptials edge closer, Yalini must decide where she stands.

Lyrical and innovative, V. V. Ganeshananthan's novel brilliantly unfolds how generations of struggle both form and fractures families.

Praise for Love Marriage

--Washington Post Book World Best of 2008
--Long-listed for the Orange Prize

"A beautiful first novel. This intricately woven tale, with its universal themes of love and estrangement, presents an exciting new voice in American literature."
-Yiyun Li, author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

"Complex and moving . . . an impressive debut."
-Daniel Alarcón, author of Lost City Radio   

"V. V. Ganeshananthan has given us a riveting picture of the intersections of love and war that shape us all. A debut of incredible passion and wisdom."
-Rebecca Johns, author of Icebergs

"As if she were stringing a necklace of bright beads, the author relates the stories of Yalini's Sri Lankan forebears in lapidary folkloric narratives...What she does here, she does quite affectingly." --The Boston Globe

"In spare, lyrical prose, V.V. Ganeshananthan's debut novel tells the story of two Sri Lankan Tamil families over four generations who, despite civil war and displacement, are irrevocably joined by marriage and tradition....Powerful."--Ms. Magazine

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Several generations of a Sri Lankan family touched by the country's civil war confront the limits of ethnic and familial allegiance in Ganeshananthan's forceful but patchy debut. First-generation American Yalini, daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil parents Vani and Murali, is an awkward 22-year-old who has spent her youth burdened by family secrets from their lives before emigration. Confronted with her enigmatic dying uncle, Kumaran, who had a shadowy role in Sri Lanka's insurgent Tamil Tigers, Yalini is driven to examine her relatives' marriages as a means of figuring out their alliances and her own unsettled identity. Her parents fell in love in New York and escaped arranged marriages back home; her grandparents, aunts and uncles have their own stories; Kumaran's 18-year-old daughter chooses to wed a Tamil Tiger financier. Written in short blocks of text, the book is structured as a kind of day book where Yalini records her progress. Repetitions create a meditative mood, but dull the book's emotional core and make emphasis on marriage seem forced. The most vivid character, Rajie, the daughter of an old family friend, appears only briefly. And the issues that plague Yalini remain vague until the last third of the novel, when the narrative suddenly takes on real power. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Born of Sri Lankan immigrants, Ganeshananthan presents a contemplative debut novel that portrays the ways one extended Sri Lankan family copes with displacement, a break with tradition, opposing political persuasions, and guilt after the beginnings of Sri Lanka’s dissolution in 1983. Yalini, the narrator, is born that very year in Connecticut to parents united in a “love marriage” instead of the more typical arranged pairing. Their families are still living in Sri Lanka and are “not quite speaking, and neither knowing exactly why.” As Yalini matures into a modern American woman, she listens to the stories of aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, and their marriages—most arranged, some happy, and some that “go on even when they should not.” She also learns the painful lesson that “one’s relatives do not always share one’s politics,” as she gradually becomes privy to family secrets and resentments “shut up in the cool and quiet cabinet of memory.” Written in sparse vignettes replete with emotional recollections of the past, Ganeshananthan’s first novel imagines a rich and haunting family history. --Deborah Donovan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; 1st Edition/1st Printing edition (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400066697
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066698
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

V.V. Ganeshananthan grew up in Maryland and is a graduate of Harvard College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Sepia Mutiny, Himal Southasian, and The American Prospect, among others. She currently serves on the board of the Asian American Writers' Workshop.

Random House published her first novel, Love Marriage, in April 2008. The book was longlisted for the Orange Prize and named one of Washington Post Book World's Best of 2008, as well as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. It has been translated into several languages.

She now teaches at the University of Michigan, where she is the Zell Visiting Professor of Creative Writing. For more information, visit www.vasugi.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent novel!, April 21, 2008

By 

Meenadchi Chelvakumar (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Marriage: A Novel (Paperback)

If I was going to write a novel about my experience as a Sri Lankan American and the two cultures, this is exactly what I would hope it would be like in both content and writing style. Actually that's an understatement: this is more than what I could possibly hope such a novel to be. Ganeshananthan's story-telling skill is superb and her literary voice is honest, sincere, intelligent, and eloquent. This is a FANTASTIC first novel and I am eagerly awaiting the second, go VV! Definitely read this book, I sense a budding Arundhati Roy in this woman....

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unconventional, enjoyable, May 6, 2008

By 

M. Bell "the truth" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Marriage: A Novel (Paperback)

Yes, there are a fair number of rhetorical flourishes in this first novel that may not suit everyone's taste, particularly since the story would draw the reader in effectively even if they weren't there. Yes, it may seem odd that the story's protagonist is arguably its least compelling character (although she is redeemed somewhat through her link to another character late in the novel), or that for a substantial part of the later chapters, not much actually happens. But there's so much good happening here that I recommend V.V. Ganeshananthan's "Love Marriage" wholeheartedly.

The episodic, almost staccato manner in which the story is told works effectively, both as a way of flitting between points in time and vividly rendered spaces in the characters' hearts and as a way of muting the effect of the aforementioned rhetorical flourishes. The limning of the two worlds Yalini straddles is skillful, with the Sri Lankan parts being particularly effective (I actually found myself wanting more of the Sri Lankan story, particularly the Tigers, than we get). The stories of a number of the supporting characters in this novel--aunts and uncles and cousins--are three-dimensional and compelling, and the place Yalini and her family's arc ultimately takes us is not to the clear conclusion that one might expect (and that some of the marketing material curiously hints at) but it is a place that I found consistent with the story's realism and nuance and the substantive themes woven throughout.

Solid stuff, overall.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love Marriage, May 16, 2008

By 

skrishna (http://www.skrishnasbooks.com) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Love Marriage: A Novel (Paperback)

Love Marriage is the story of Yalini, a recent college grad who is a first generation Sri Lankan-American. The book is not so much her story, as it is the story of her Sri Lankan family and the trials and tribulations they experienced as a result of Marriage. It is not just internal family squabbles that run through the book, it is also the recent history of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers that really make this book a gem. While there are plenty of books about India, Sri Lanka is often overshadowed; the country's history isn't nearly as well known. While most people have heard of the Tamil Tigers, few know who they really are or what it means. That is the strength of this book - the history it reveals to its readers. While the story of the people and relationships is somewhat less compelling, overall it is still a book that is very much worth reading.