The Shadow Bride [Hardcover]

Roy A. K. Heath (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in England, where it was first published in 1991, this seductive family saga from Guyanese novelist Heath (The Armstrong Trilogy) portrays an idealistic, self-doubting doctor who simultaneously confronts a domineering, religiously obsessed mother; racist, condescending British administrators; tensions among Indians, Creoles, Hindus and Muslims; and his own personal quest for identity. In 1929, Betta Singh, born in Guyana to parents from India, returns from medical studies in Dublin and London to become a government medical officer on a British sugar plantation where impoverished Guyanese natives toil despite malnutrition and malaria. Meanwhile, his controlling, widowed mother, who wears trousers "like a man," has fallen under the spell of a Svengali-like Hindu priest who moves in with her, first as her counselor, then as her bedmate, and whose machinations thwart a reconciliation between mother and son. In musical prose, Heath creates complex, convincing characters?like the dressmaker Lahti, emotionally enslaved to a thug who beats her, and Nen Merriman, self-styled marriage counselor and judge who holds an unofficial court to resolve disputes among Creole neighbors. Heath's modest, unpretentious style undergirds a powerful realism as his subtle analysis of family conflicts builds to a tragic and moving climax.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An East Indian family who emigrated to Guyana, the Singhs are in a constant turmoil of shifting religious and cultural beliefs. After the death of the father, Mrs. Singh struggles to hold onto their past life. The story highlights her idiosyncracies and failures but examines everyone in her household, especially her son Betta. Mrs. Singh controls everyone around her and strives to do the same with Betta?without success. When Betta moves away to become the resident doctor on a distant plantation, he and his bitter mother are estranged for years. He gets married, has children, and builds a hospital, but his life is somehow incomplete, leading him to seek reconciliation. His mother tricks him into promising her his firstborn son who, through ill luck or Mrs. Singh's designs, has an accident that leaves him slightly deformed. Yet Betta's life prospers while his mother's becomes miserable, and Betta has to rescue her and take her into his home. This long tale is often plodding and tedious, but Heath has crafted a family saga like none other, detailing the intricate lives of East Indians in Guyana. Recommended for multicultural collections.?Corinne Nelson, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 437 pages
• Publisher: Persea Books (February 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892552131
• ISBN-13: 978-0892552139
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,252,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars empty-nest synderome, December 3, 2000

By 

Priya Mendiratta MD (Boston USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shadow Bride (Hardcover)

The book by Roy Heath set in the British Guyana in the early 20th century called the Shadow Bride is a fiction story depicting the life of immigrant Indians in a multiracial and multicultural society. It was interesting to read the cultural and traditional struggles of immigrants from India in a different country. The story line revolves around a rich widow Mrs. Singh, who undergoes a metamorphosis after her husband's death. She emerges from his shadow as a whole new person with rebelliousness towards her previous image, by changing her dressing style, associations and relationships with people in order to gain power and control of a household. She cannot let go of her son Betta, a doctor, in pursuit of his goal to work as a medical officer amongst poor sugar plantation workers. The mother is suffering from an empty- nest syndrome and tries to fill her house with workers, their families and others to ward off her loneliness, which slowly engulfs her completely. The son, after breaking off his ties to the house and his mother gives up a life of comfort and security to work for poor and needy. He in turn has to struggle a great deal. He is a good doctor, but fails to see the mental suffering and loneliness of his mother, who always felt in exile in Guyana. A delicate web of interrelationships of various characters is woven with each other and with the society portraying how imminent and dependent they all are on each other for their very survival. The different cultures, languages, religions create an identity crisis amongst some of the Guyanaese Indians. The end leaves a powerful impression in the mind that haunts you for a long time after finishing the book. I found it impressive that the writer maintained my interest till the very last page, which I felt, was the climax of the story. Roy Heath has used a lyrical prose, nature pigdin English to make it sound very real. Despite its simple language, the writing is powerful, bold , vivid and mentally stimulating

5.0 out of 5 stars The cultural dislocation of a transplanted community treated with a rare sympathy, March 10, 2009

By 

Trevor Coote "Trevor Coote" (Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Shadow Bride (Hardcover)

When reading this engaging tale of mid-century life in the East Indian community of the then British Guiana it is difficult to avoid making comparisons with the works of V S Naipaul. The Shadow Bride is concerned with same community transplanted under similar circumstances to that in Naipaul's native Trinidad and is written with the same superb simplicity. Yet ironically Roy Heath's saga is more amiable, less cynical and ultimately more sympathetic towards that community; ironical because the author himself was only in part East Indian (he also had African, European and Amerindian heritage). The core of the novel revolves around the complicated relationship between the domineering control-freak Mrs Singh, who has lost her respected husband, and her son Betta who has recently returned from his studies in England. As part of her mini-empire she is also sheltering under the same roof the old house servant Aji, two young friends, Bai and the thuggish Sukrum, and two girls Rani and Lahti.
Her son remains the one individual whom she cannot control. Enlightened, idealistic and deeply concerned about the sorry plight - and even sorrier health - of the religiously fractured Indian community of indentured labourers Betta marries, leaves home against his mother's wishes and takes a government job as a doctor on the sugar estates rather than an easier position in his home town. There, despite his best efforts, he is constantly undermined and threatened by the European estate owners who object to his giving out medical certificates to the workers because of their loss of revenue. Meanwhile in his absence his mother has fallen under the spell of a Hindu mystic-charlatan, Lahti has succumbed to the brutality of Sukrum, Rani is constantly humiliated by the ineffectuality of her servile husband Tipu, and life in the house is slowly falling apart, a metaphor for the community at large.
The central issue of this thoughtful and empathetic work is that of cultural dislocation within a community (Indian) which, as the descendents of African slaves still maintain, was brought to the Caribbean under a system that was effectively quasi-slavery. Having lost the iniquitous caste system, their ability to fluently speak their native tongue and their traditional familial values, the cohesion of community life begins gradually breaking down with nothing to fill the void. Like Naipaul the author lived in London from the early 1950s but he, unlike Naipaul, only ever wrote about his homeland. He once said that he wanted to make a dramatic chronicle of life in Guyana during the twentieth century. On this book alone he has gone some way to achieving that aim. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the cultural history of the Caribbean and who enjoys an absorbing domestic story delivered in impeccable, lucid prose.