Deeply human debut about Partition
Star-crossed lovers. Intoxicating scents. Old war journals containing ghosts and secrets. What more could you want in a work of historical fiction?
Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel “The Book of Everlasting Things” paints a riveting picture of the 1947 Partition of India using all senses — especially and unusually leaning into smell.
The Vij family, Hindus living in Lahore who become minor celebrities as perfumers, are well-known and highly regarded for their unsurpassed ittar, extracted from flowers. This success attracts the Khans, a Muslim family whose patriarch teaches calligraphy at the Wazir Khan Mosque across town. On a fateful visit to the Vij shop in 1938, it’s the young Firdaus Khan’s scent that bewitches perfuming apprentice Samir Vij.
Over the next 10 years, their relationship grows from the curiosity of children to the fierce and longing love of young adults. But the Partition takes “star-crossed lovers” to a new level as violence takes hold of Lahore, threatening to leave no person untouched by the impending split that would result in Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
To truly understand the history and the characters, Malhotra brings us back to Samir’s uncle, who witnesses the horrors of World War I trenches for the sake of India’s colonizer, Great Britain.
The story also stretches decades into the future, allowing the ramifications of war and heartbreak to echo through generations. And although the facts are predictable, the people are decidedly not.
“The Book of Everlasting Things” is a book to stroll through and indulge in. Having already proved
her deep knowledge of the Partition in her two previous nonfiction works, Malhotra tried her hand at longform fiction and succeeds with elegance. At all turns, “The Book of Everlasting Things” is deeply human, with careful attention paid to both factual and emotional accuracy. — Donna Edwards, Associated Press
Willie Black is a 60-yearold multiracial reporter
who covers the night cops beat for a dying Richmond, Virginia, newspaper. He smokes, drinks and falls in love too much, and is fiercely dedicated to a profession that has not been kind to him.
Author Howard Owen, a former Virginia newspaperman himself, first introduced Willie in “Oregon Hill” in 2012, and now, in the 12th book of this underappreciated series of crime novels, the protagonist’s hold on employment is more tenuous than ever. The decline of print journalism is a recurring theme in these books, and thanks to massive budget cuts and layoffs by a corporate owner, the newspaper to which Willie has devoted his life appears on the verge of cutting him loose.
As “Dogtown” opens, a
plumber, Richmond’s first homicide victim of the new year, is discovered near the railroad tracks in a bad part of town, his throat cut and one of his fingers removed. When two more victims are butchered the same way, Willie realizes the city he has a love/hate relationship with has a serial killer on its hands.
With the police investigation going nowhere, Willie, a dogged and skilled investigative reporter, sets out to end the reign of terror himself while at the same time generously mentoring a young reporter who is after his job. Working long hours without overtime pay, he contends with a stonewalling police chief and an ethically compromised mayor to bring the case to a disturbing conclusion.
In a sense, Willie is an archetype. Most newspapers in America have a veteran reporter or two like him. However, his quirks and his biting, self-deprecatory sense of humor are all his own.
As always in an Owen novel, the writing is tight, the dark story is leavened with humor, and Willie’s oddball collection of friends and ex-wives are as engaging as ever.