“A powerful, urgent novel that wields issues of gender and class like a blade. . . . This intergenerational novel asks hard questions about who we are, who we can become, and what awaits on the other side of our becoming. Thrity Umrigar is known as a bold and generous writer, and The Secrets Between Us only further establishes her reputation.” — Wiley Cash, author of The Last BalladBhima, the … of The Last Ballad
Bhima, the unforgettable main character of Thrity Umrigar’s beloved national bestseller The Space Between Us, returns in this triumphant sequel—a poignant and compelling novel in which the former servant struggles against the circumstances of class and misfortune to forge a new path for herself and her granddaughter in modern India.
Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than twenty years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. The sting of that dismissal was made more painful coming from Sera Dubash, the temperamental employer who had long been Bhima’s only confidante. A woman who has endured despair and loss with stoicism, Bhima must now find some other way to support herself and her granddaughter, Maya.
Bhima’s fortunes take an unexpected turn when her path intersects with Parvati, a bitter, taciturn older woman. The two acquaintances soon form a tentative business partnership, selling fruits and vegetables at the local market. As they work together, these two women seemingly bound by fate grow closer, each confessing the truth about their lives and the wounds that haunt them. Discovering her first true friend, Bhima pieces together a new life, and together, the two women learn to stand on their own.
A dazzling story of gender, strength, friendship, and second chances, The Secrets Between Us is a powerful and perceptive novel that brilliantly evokes the complexities of life in modern India and the harsh realities faced by women born without privilege as they struggle to survive.
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The Secrets Between Us is a powerful, urgent novel that wields issues of gender and class like a blade. The weight of Bhima’s tragic past and her intractable present finds its counterbalance in the most unlikely of characters: Parvati, an elderly homeless woman who is haunted by a history of her own. This intergenerational novel asks hard questions about who we are, who we can become, and what awaits on the other side of our becoming. Thrity Umrigar is known as a bold and generous writer, and The Secrets Between Us only further establishes her reputation.
The Secrets Between Us broke me open as thoroughly as any novel I’ve read in recent years. Bhima and Parvati, two proud, aging women hard-used by life, are as unlikely a pair of heroes as one could imagine, and yet they jump from these pages big and true as life, striving, surviving, learning to hope and even love long past the point where such things have come to seem like a cruel joke. Thrity Umrigar has given us yet another brilliant powerhouse of a novel.
The women at the heart of this novel inhabit the harsh world of the urban Indian poor, and struggle separately and together for dignity and survival. Thrity Umrigar has written a moving human tale that vividly brings to life both the women and the city of Mumbai.
The characters had a lot of depth. The book really described the class system in
India. The writer makes you feel like you know the characters in the story.
I truly loved this book. I recommended it to my daughter. I enjoy novels that excellently written, well-crafted, tell good stories, and take me to another place and culture. The Secrets Between Us did all of this. Plus, I have read novels with Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and traditional indigenous religion characters; however, Umrigar writes of the small Parsi (Zoroastrian) community in India. I learned things I never knew, and I teach religion.
In depth personal voice of an Indian women and her family, neighbors, friends and associates. It felt like you were walking thru her life with her. She was a difficult person at times but you grew to appreciate her more and more. It is ultimately about love and hope sustaining her thru the hardships. Beatifully narated story.
I loved this book as I have all of this author’s books. So original- so touching-so thought provoking. Each and every book Thrity has written is a winner. Never ever a disappointment.
This is the follow up to THE SPACE BETWEEN US. This is a story of women in India and difference in the cast. I love the characters and definitely recommend you read Space Between Us first if you don’t you will miss so much of the character development. I could not put either one down from the first page. There is so much strength in women and how they survive
Loved the writing. Didn’t want to leave the characters.
Love love Thrity Urmigar and this follow up to The Space between us doesn’t disappoint! I do recommend you read them in order- tho it’s not a must
Need to read Space Between Us 1st