Ladies Coupe FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Akhila is forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has always been the backbone of her impossibly demanding family - until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to a resort town. In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping car - the Ladies Coupe - the women share their lives, their loves, their heartaches, and their triumphs. All of this leads Akhila to answer the question that has always haunted her: has her life been complete without a man?" This novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their relationships with husbands, mothers, friends, employers, and children are the same the world over.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Nair (The Better Man) focuses on the seemingly restricted lives of contemporary Indian women. Akhila is a 45-year-old spinster who has supported her family since her father's death 26 years ago. Needing to examine her unfulfilled life, she buys a one-way ticket to a resort town. During the train ride, Akhila and the five other women in her compartment intimately share details about their relationships with husbands and families and their sexual experiences. Each woman's tale is a crystalline gem of knowledge and insight. While Margaret deliberately fattened her husband to take the nasty edge off his bullying personality, Sheela adorned her grandmother's corpse because she understood the old woman's vanity and fear of aging; Mari rejected the son who was born of a rape. A sensitive exploration of the tension of self-actualization vs. familial responsibility in a society with traditional values, this novel-first published in India and a best seller in France and Italy-will surely resonate with readers everywhere. For all fiction collections.-Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Indian author Nair's first US publication offers a quietly powerful feminist message in the story of a middle-aged spinster, one who finds the courage and support to live independently as she and her fellow passengers on an overnight train share their stories. Like so many travelers linked by chance and circumstance-here the six-berth overnight Ladies Coupe-the women tell their stories to pass the time, while Akhila, the protagonist, listens and adds her contributions. Now 45, Akhila gave up her education when her father died and she became the family breadwinner. She's spent her life providing for them and now is taking a vacation to decide what she should do with the time left to her. Her siblings are shocked that she wants to live alone-she should be with the family, contributing her salary to their well-being-but Akhila is tired of their greed and self-absorption, and wants to live as she pleases. Listening to the other women, Akhila soon realizes that her feelings are not unusual. Between each story, Akhila adds her own: her brief affair with Hari, a younger man; a Christian friend who introduced her to eggs, a food her devout Hindu family thought unclean; and her thwarted efforts to live alone after her mother's death. The first passenger's tale is told by the elderly Janaki, who recalls how a visit to her son convinced her to live only for her husband, whom she loved deeply, rather than her selfish children. Sheela, a teenager, remembers her closeness to her imperious grandmother, who has just died; Margaret, a chemistry teacher, describes how she finally got even with her tyrannical, and possibly perverted, husband; wealthy Prabha, a wife and mother, tells of recapturing herindependence when she learned to swim; and Mari, who was raped as a teenager, relates how she hated the son she bore as a result, even indenturing him to gain money, until she was ashamed of what she had done. As the journey ends, Akhila is ready to act. On message, but with refreshing subtlety. Agent: Laura Susijn/Susijn Agency
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