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Time out (London, UK) – April 2006 -- The
Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar -- By Zoe Paxton --
There is nothing better book-wise, than falling upon a brilliant
novel…such was the case with The Space Between Us by Thrity
Umrigar…This novel does lots of different things at the same time
and excels at all….this is no saccharine tale of friendship across
the social divide; Umrigar is far too clever for that. In fact the
thing this book is probably best at is the nuances and complexity of
relationships…the honesty of the writing means that we connect with
these characters even more – since each time the author...
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The Independent (UK) – March 3, 2006 -- The Space
Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar -- By Aamer Hussein -- Two for
one, three for two: no noun without an adjective, never a single
adjective where two or more will do. Silence is "utter", hatred "raw
and naked", puddles "brown, murky and stagnant". The quirkiest of
all appendages in this novel is the heroine's nose: not only "long,
straight" but also "impervious". That misplaced "v" embodies the
ingredients Thrity Umrigar brings to what might have been a tried
(or tired) intertwining of genres: a Mumbai novel, a Mumbai Parsi
novel...
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Financial Times – February 17, 2006 -- Book
Reviews: In brief - The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar -- By
Claudia Webb -- The Space Between Us is a novel of relationships.
Bhima lives in a Bombay slum, a place of extreme poverty where
dwellers spend hours queuing for water and live amid the constant
stench of open drains. Each day Bhima goes to work in the Dubash
household as a servant to Sera Dubash, a rich widow. Bhima has
cooked, cleaned and looked after the family, as though it were her
own, her whole life. The “space” between the two women is not as
wide as it appears initially. Both have...
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Pages Magazine – February 2006 -- The Space
Between Us by Thrity Umrigar, William Morrow -- On a sunny
afternoon; all right in my world, I burst into deep, heaving tears.
I was reading The Space Between Us by Thriry Umrigar and had reached
a passage in which Bhima, an impoverished and weary maid-of-all-work
in Bombay, watches her beloved daughter Pooja succumb to AIDS just
hours after the latter's husband has died of the same disease. Bhima
is a servant to Sera and her family-willful, wealthy members of the
small and idiosyncratic Parsi sect. Every whim of Sera's clan
affects Bhima and her granddaughter, Maya...
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The Economist -- January 28, 2006 --
THE SPACE BETWEEN US, Thrity Umrigar. Morrow, $24.95 (320p) ISBN
0-06-079155-1-- OUT of India's seething hotch-potch of humanity Thrity
Umrigar has created two vivid female characters, each representative
of thousands of real-life Indian women. Sera Dubash is an
upper-middle-class Parsi housewife. She lives a privileged life in
an affluent Mumbai household with her happily married daughter and
son-in-law. Bhima Gopal is Sera's servant. She is old, poor, tired:
"dried out, scooped out, as hollow and wrinkled as a walnut shell".
Each morning she leaves her mud-floored hut...
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The New York Times -- January 22, 2006 -- 'The
Space Between Us,' by Thrity Umrigar -- The Clash of Caste --
Review by LIGAYA MISHAN -- In the classic upstairs-downstairs story,
you always have a sneaking suspicion that downstairs, freed of
corsets and etiquette, the servants are having a lot more fun than
their prim, monocled masters. But no such palliative exists in the
world of Thrity Umrigar's second novel, which examines the class
divide in Bombay (as Umrigar continues to call Mumbai) through the
relationship of a mistress and her servant. In a city where the
densest slums have a population of one million per square mile,
"downstairs" is fairly grim. It's hardly surprising, then...
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Beacon Journal (OH) – January 15, 2006 -- Class
difference can't quiet heart -- The Space Between Us' shows
relationship between women, India's caste system --
By Mary Ethridge -- The relationship between a wealthy woman and her
domestic servant isn't a new subject in the world of fiction. Think
of Shakespeare's Juliet with her maid and Scarlett O'Hara's ties to
Mammy. But by setting such a relationship in India, a culture
ferociously bound to class identities, author Thrity Umrigar has
infused the story with a particular richness and depth. The Space
Between Us, Umrigar's second novel, traces the relationship between
the upper-class Parsi Sera Dubash and her illiterate, slum-dwelling
servant Bhima...
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Bookreporter.com – January 2006 --
THE SPACE BETWEEN US, Thrity Umrigar, William Morrow, ISBN:
0060791551 -- THE SPACE BETWEEN US is a musing on the bond between
two modern-day Bombay women: Sera and her long-time servant, Bhima.
Their union is tested again and again, frayed by Bhima's servile
role, by Sera's educated, middle-class Parsi upbringing, and by the
deeply-sown seeds of bigotry and class prejudice that rank Bhima as
less than human. We see Sera struggle to overcome her class bias and
we grit our teeth with frustration when she admits that the thought
of Bhima sitting on her furniture, sleeping in her house and using
her utensils makes her shudder...
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Washington Post -- January 8, 2006 -- Housekeeping
-- A wealthy woman and her servant endure parallel challenges in
India. -- Reviewed by Frances Itani -- Artists know very well
that a good way to depict overwhelming social problems is to tell
the story of an individual who represents many others. One set of
political circumstances might blur into another on the large scale,
while the human story, well told, will be long remembered. India's
complex struggle with poverty, class and overpopulation amid
political change poses special challenges in this regard, but Thrity
Umrigar has created two wonderfully sympathetic characters who do
much to make that country's complex nature comprehensible...
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Booklist Starred Review – January 03, 2006 --
Umrigar, Thrity. THE SPACE BETWEEN US. -- Sera Dubash is an
upper-middle-class Parsi housewife in modern-day Bombay. Bhima is
her domestic servant. Though they inhabit dramatically different
worlds, the two women have much in common. Both married men they
alternately love and loathe: Sera’s moody husband frequently beats
her, and Bhima’s betrothed falls into an alcohol-drenched depression
after losing his job. Sera’s civil treatment of her servant—she
overlooks Bhima’s frequent tardiness and treats her like an
equal—dismays her neighbors and friends...
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San Francisco Chronicle – January 1, 2006 -- THE SPACE BETWEEN US, Thrity Umrigar. Morrow, $24.95 (320p) ISBN
0-06-079155-1 -- With child, within class in Bombay -- Reviewed by
Lynn Andriani -- In many ways, Bombay-born writer Thrity Umrigar's
second novel covers common literary terrain. Its theme is familiar:
Two characters from opposite sides of the track become inextricably
intertwined. Its literary devices aren't unique: Metaphors and
similes appear on nearly every page, and flashbacks reveal
characters' backgrounds. Its characterizations are, on the surface,
rife with recognizable dramas: The rich live in luxury, while the
poor exist in squalor, and there appears to be no in-between...
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The Plain Dealer – January 1, 2006 -- The
Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar. William Morrow, 321 pp., $24.95.
-- Drawing reader close in tale of two disparate women -- Karen R.
Long -- Soon, Bombay - now called Mumbai - is expected to out strip
the continent of Australia in population. Already among the largest
cities on the planet, with some 18 million urban dwellers, Bombay
and its stories represent who we are becoming. New York journalist
Suketu Mehta took a big, masculine bite of Bombay in "Maximum City,"
his celebrated 2004 work of nonfiction. Now another American
journalist, Thrity Umrigar, circles back to the city of her first 21
years, which she left to attend Ohio State University. Her second
novel, "The Space Between Us," is a quieter, more intimate slice of
Bombay than Mehta's, layered with keen, feminine insight into class
and family, betrayal, guilt and love...
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Armchair Interviews – December 2005 -- The Space
Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar , William Morrow -- Reviewed by
Karen Morse -- This novel is sad, but more than that, it is
beautiful, simple, and real. Set in contemporary Bombay, The Space
Between Us is the story of two women. Sera Dubash is an upper-middle
class Parsi housewife who seems to have a perfect life. Bhima is a
servant in the Dubash household (as if to reiterate Bhima's status
in society, her surname is never mentioned). She lives in a slum
with her pregnant 17-year-old granddaughter...
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Publishers Weekly – December 5, 2005 -- THE SPACE
BETWEEN US, Thrity Umrigar. Morrow, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 0-06-079155-1
-- Umrigar’s schematic novel (after Bombay Time) illustrates the
intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in
contemporary Bombay. Bhima, a 65-year-old slum dweller, has worked
for Sera Dubash, a younger upper-middle-class Parsi woman, for
years: cooking, cleaning and tending Sera after the beatings she
endures from her abusive husband, Feroz. Sera, in turn, nurses Bhima
back to health from typhoid fever and sends her granddaughter Maya
to college. Sera recognizes their affinity: “They were alike in many
ways, Bhima and she. Despite the different trajectories of their
lives—circumstances...
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Kirkus Review – November 15, 2005 --
THE SPACE BETWEEN US, Umrigar, Thrity -- Morrow/HarperCollins , Pages: 320 , $24.95, Publication Date: 1/10/2006,
ISBN: 0-06-079155-1-- Set
in contemporary Bombay, Umrigar's second novel (Bombay Time, 2001) is an
affecting portrait of a woman and her maid, whose lives, despite class
disparity, are equally heartbreaking.
Though Bhima has worked for the Dubash family for decades and is coyly
referred to as "one of the family," she nonetheless is forbidden from
sitting on the furniture and must use her own utensils while eating. For
years, Sera blamed these humiliating boundaries on her husband Feroz, but
now that he's dead and she's lady of the house...
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