Book Review: The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran
The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran
Publisher: The Dial Press
Release Date: April 23, 2013
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Anand is a Bangalore success story: successful, well married, rich. At least, that’s how he appears. But if his little factory is to grow, he needs land and money, and, in the New India, neither of these is easy to find.
Kamala, Anand’s family’s maid, lives perilously close to the edge of disaster. She and her clever teenage son have almost nothing, and their small hopes for self-betterment depend on the contentment of Anand’s wife: a woman to whom whims come easily.
But Kamala’s son keeps bad company, and Anand’s marriage is in trouble. The murky world where crime and land and politics meet is a dangerous place for a good man, particularly one on whom the well-being of so many depends.
The Hope Factory chronicles the lives of Anand, a wealthy factory owner and Kamala, a poor maid who works in Anand’s household. The difference between the classes in Bangalore is striking. Kamala lives in a one room building without electricity or running water. She thinks that the fact that American housekeepers live in multiple room houses and even have cars is a myth. She desperately wants her son Narayan to stay in school and off the streets so he can have a better life than her.
I love books about India and Indian culture. This book was a reality check about the wide income disparity and heartbreaking poverty that exists in the country. The lives of both main characters were not romanticized. The characters had depth and even though they all had flaws I was able to empathize with most of them. The situations they were in had my stomach in knots – especially Anand trying to get more land to expand his factory. It’s a sign of great writing when it evokes such an emotional response in me. Even if you’re not as intrigued by all things Indian like me I think you will enjoy this book.
(I received this book courtesy of LibraryThing’s Early Reviews program.)
