Daughters of the House

by Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen

Living in peaceful isolation with her sister, aunt, and grandmother, eighteen-year-old Chchanda finds her ordered world of women shattered by the presence of Pratap, her aunt's new husband

Genres: Fiction

199 pages, Hardcover

Published January 19, 1993

Reviews

[Nettle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a perfectly well-written book, but there was something ponderous about the prose that just didn't engage me.

Edit: forgot I read this 12 years ago and reread it. I appreciate it more these days, perhaps, with more years of life experience behind me. I think it's not the pros I find oppressive, but the characters in their situations – but that is the very point of the story, or at least one of them in terms of how the protagonist transforms her oppression.

[Kimberlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A household of Indian women in a small village. For years the house was only women--until an aunt marries and brings home her husband. This causes uproar. The aunt then falls ill with lupus. The husband turns for comfort in the elder neice. The traditions of the women's ways play out.