The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti is a heartfelt story about the effect that Partition had on one particular Hindu family, and how this effect was felt by a number of generations. The story opens in August 1947 with 16 year old Deepa finding romance with the handsome Amir, but their situation is tenuous as Amir’s family is Muslim and for safety they must immigrate to the new country of Pakistan. As they pledge their love for each other, Amir vows to return to Deepa, but unfortunately with the violence that is exploding all around them, he doesn’t come and she is taken to England where she gives birth to a son.

I loved this story but was a little frustrated with how it jumped back and forth in time. A good part of the story is set in 2017 with Shan, who we find is Deepa’s granddaughter, and as her life takes a turn for the worse, she finds herself alone leaving her plenty of time to think about her lack of knowledge about her family and how they came to be so separated from each other. Her grandmother, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl, has always been cold and remote, but Shan decides she needs to find answers to the past and how it affected her grandmother, then her father and finally herself.

The Parted Earth is a family saga with the Partition as a catalyst that changed the direction of so many lives. I was a little taken aback at Deepa’s attitude, although she had lost a lot, she allowed the past to dominate her relationships and became a very lonely woman. On the other hand, I was drawn into Shan’s story and enjoyed how she and her friend pieced together the mystery of her heritage and found both joy and acceptance. ( )

Lately, I've been running into a lot of fiction that draws on the partition of India—sometimes I look for it deliberately; at other times it pops up in places I don't expect. The Parted Earth is one of the titles dealing with partition that I chose deliberately. The chaos and violence of this time—and how little I knew about it—are incredibly disturbing, and also a necessary warning. At our worst, we humans can be terrible. And after those historical outbursts of horrible, we seem to move onto a bifurcated path: one that simultaneously disavows the violence, while also gradually building up to the next round of it. As I read about the religiously motivated violence at the time of the partition, I think about present-day India and the new wave of sectarian violence sweeping it.

The Parted Earth is a powerful novel of the partition and its aftermath. It's a hard read. Not all the characters survive. Those that survive don't necessarily recover from their losses and trauma. Taking the long view, The Parted Earth offers a sliver of hope, but that sliver is narrow.

If you want to face history, to learn from it and to see the power it has to shape us, this is a book you'll value. There are characters in it worth caring about and lessons we very much need at this moment.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. ( )