Book Talk: Thrity Umrigar’s new novel is a matter of ‘Honor’

Abdul was murdered for honor. Meena’s brothers killed him for their honor, their family’s honor, for their faith. “Honor,” a new novel by former Beacon Journal writer Thrity Umrigar, weighs the matter through the story of two women.

Smita Agarwal, a Mumbai-born journalist, has been living in America since her teens; her parents settled in Columbus but she prefers a low-profile life in Manhattan. Smita is on vacation in the Maldives when she gets a call from Shannon, who works for the same international newspaper. Shannon’s had an accident and is awaiting surgery, and sends for Smita.

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Smita thinks she’s come to Mumbai to help Shannon and is irked when Shannon instead expects her to take over a story she’s been working on. Meena, a young Hindu woman from a rural village, married a Muslim man with whom she worked at a clothing factory. This so outraged her brothers that they set Abdul on fire. When Meena tries to rescue him, she suffers unimaginable burns.

Though Smita’s specialty is gender issues, she’s uneasy about covering the story. She also feels uneasy about being in Mumbai. Mohan, Shannon’s friend who has agreed to drive her around and act as her translator when she goes to Meena’s remote village, challenges her perceptions, and a confrontational visit to a former neighbor hints at her aversion to staying in India. The reason for that comes out much later in a tearful confession to Mohan.

Meena tells her story in the first person. She worked as a servant and cook for her brothers, who were outraged when Meena and her sister dared to find work. Abdul sees Meena working at her sewing machine and courts her with kind words and golden mangoes. When they marry, the chief of her village tells her brothers to burn down their hut with Abdul in it, which the chief later confesses to Smita. One of the brothers says it was “to protect the honor of all Hindus. To teach those Muslim dogs their proper station in life.”

Perhaps the ultimate outrage for Meena’s brothers is that she is now suing them. The lawyer who has taken her case for free tells Smita the Indian media have ignored the story, saying “Do you think they can be bothered with such a story? After all, these were Hindus killing a Muslim. So who cares, right?”

Smita struggles to maintain her journalistic impartiality when she talks to Meena and sees her horrifying injuries. Mohan, seeing the sordid conditions in which Meena and her daughter live with her abusive mother-in-law, has no such reservations, playing with the little girl and giving them money.

Umrigar makes a sharp contrast between the noble Abdul and idealistic Mohan, and the monstrous brothers whose vengeance is buried deeply in their culture. She is not known for writing romantic passages, but “Honor” has a redemptive, if sentimental, conclusion.

“Honor” (336 pages, hardcover) costs $26.95 from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Thrity Umrigar now is a professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.

Thrity Umrigar will launch “Honor” with a Zoom presentation at 7 p.m. Friday in a discussion with Paula McLain, Cleveland Heights author of “The Paris Wife” and “When the Stars Go Dark.” Go to loganberrybooks.com to register and to order a signed copy.

Events

Cuyahoga County Public Library: Thriller author Kimberly Belle discusses “My Darling Husband,” 7 to 8 p.m. Monday; from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz, a Shaker Heights native, discusses her memoir “Lost & Found” with writer Andy Borowitz, founder of the Borowitz Report.

Hudson Library & Historical Society: Forensic and psychiatric nurse Ann Wolbert Burgess talks about “A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind” with her co-author Steven Matthew Considine in a Zoom event at 7 p.m. Monday. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Brad Taylor talks about “End of Days: A Pike Logan Novel,” 16th in the military thriller series about the leader of a counterterrorism task force. Register at hudsonlibrary.org.

Mansfield-Richland County Public Library (Lexington branch, 25 Lutz Ave.): Tim Carroll of Akron, author of “World War II Akron,” presents “Fascinating Facts & Photos of World War II,” 6 p.m. Tuesday. Register at 419-884-2500.

Email information about books of local interest, and event notices at least two weeks in advance to BeaconBookTalk@gmail.com and bjnews@thebeaconjournal.com. I tweet at @BarbaraMcI.

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Thrity Umrigar’s novel ‘Honor’