Shruti Swamy

Kiese Laymon called Shruti Swamy's debut book of stories, A House Is a Body, "one of the greatest short story collections of the 2020s." Now, Swamy brings us an accomplished and immersive coming-of-age novel set in the Bombay of the 1960s and 1970s. As a child, Vidya exists to serve her family, watch over her younger brother, and make sense of a motherless world. One day she catches sight of a class where the students are learning Kathak, a precise, dazzling form of dance that requires the utmost discipline and focus. Kathak quickly becomes the organizing principle of Vidya's life, even as she leaves home for college, falls in love with her best friend, and battles demands on her time, her future, and her body. Can Vidya give herself over to her art and also be a wife in Bombay's carefully delineated society? Can she shed the legacy of her own imperfect, unknowable mother? Must she, herself, also become a mother? Intensely lyrical and deeply sensual, with writing as rhythmically mesmerizing as Kathak itself, The Archer is about the transformative power of art and the possibilities that love can open when we're ready.

The Archer

Sahi K

CW: suicide, pregnancy. 

This book was nowhere on my radar and despite it being a desi author, literary fiction is not my thing and I don’t think I would have specifically looked it up and decided to read. But surprisingly, I got the advance audiobook of it and then felt, why not. 

First and foremost, I decided to give it a try mostly because Sneha Mathan is the audiobook narrator and she is a favorite of mine, her beautiful and husky voice giving life to even dull descriptions in her previous works which I enjoyed. And in this debut novel, the author writes with a kind of stream of consciousness style, which I thought really worked in the audio format. As someone who isn’t comfortable with that style of writing or with the heavy use of metaphors in language, I didn’t think I would like this one much either. But Sneha makes it a bit easier to digest as well as better appreciate the cadence of the author’s words. But despite understanding that there is a wild kind of beauty in these words, it didn’t wow me in any way. It was only in the scenes where the author describes the kathak dance form as well as how much the main character Vidya feels while performing - these were the parts of the story that mesmerized me. The way the author integrates stories from our mythology into the dance performance, describing it in lush and lyrical detail, really left me impressed. However, these words also evoked a deep longing in my heart for my younger days when I thought I could learn singing before I realized my dreams couldn’t come true. 

But I could never put my finger on what I felt about Vidya. I didn’t understand what she actually wanted from her life other than the joy of dancing and I didn’t find myself much interested in anything that she did. And this maybe going into spoiler territory, but the fourth part of the book is all about her experience through the pregnancy and the delivery in graphic detail - and it made me very uncomfortable due to my own personal reasons. I was also hoping for a much different ending but what happened didn’t surprise me at all; I think it was the safest way to end the book and maybe I was disappointed… 

Anyways, I feel like I’m only rambling some nonsense here instead of writing a coherent review, so please take my words with a grain of salt. It’s just that the book left me feeling a bit unsettled. However, if you are a lover of the literary fiction genre , or lyrical and beautifully written stories about women, or even just a fan of the amazing Sneha Mathan’s narration, you might like this much more than I did.

The Archer

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