The Kashmiri Shawl: A Novel

by Joanne Dobson

A nineteenth-century American missionary widow embarks on a daring quest to find her dark-skinned child. India, 1857: Anna Wheeler Roundtree, missionary wife, flees her husband's pious tyranny, leaving the safety of the Protestant Mission in which she's spent most of the past decade. Her timing is bad: the train carrying her to freedom steams into the midst of the brutal Indian Rebellion. She is, however, plucked from danger by Ashok Montgomery, a wealthy Anglo-Indian tea planter. Together they escape the angry mobs and find the shelter of an isolated mountain cave. There, for the first time, Anna learns the true nature of love.

New York City, 1860: Now a successful poet featured in national magazines, Anna Wheeler is astonished to learn that the daughter she bore upon her return was not stillborn, as she was told, but has been kidnapped. When Anna hears the baby described as "dark-skinned," she realizes that Ashok, the man she'd left behind in the tumult of the rebellion, is the true father, not her blond, fair-skinned husband. In her own racially inflamed nation on the verge of its own war, Anna throws respectability to the wind, learns to take risks, break rules, and trust strangers in a determined search for the little girl. Then a deranged voice arises from her tormented past, making demands that compel her back to India. Anna must confront the evil that set her running in the first place. Will her daring quest for her child, and for the love of her life, end in triumph or in heartbreak?

Genres: Historical Fiction, India, Fiction

370 pages, Paperback

First published May 23, 2014

About the author

At midlife, after two decades as an English professor and literary scholar, Joanne Dobson surprised herself (and her colleagues) by writing a mystery novel set at a small, elite, New England college where the curriculum seemed to offer a major in murder. Joanne was even more surprised when QUIETER THAN SLEEP (1997) was published by Doubleday. QUIETER was the first of the six Professor Karen Pelletier academic mystery novels, and the sheer pleasure of writing mysteries lured Joanne's feet from the straight path of tenured professorship to the slippery slope of 21st-century fiction writing.

And now comes an unexpected new surprise, THE KASHMIRI SHAWL (2014). An historical novel set in an India in violent rebellion (1857) and an America on the verge of Civil War (1860). An epic journey from the sultry climes of nineteenth-century India to the cosmopolitan chaos of New York City on the eve of Civil War, and then back again to India in quest of a kidnapped daughter and a lost, forbidden, love.

Joanne taught for many years at Fordham University, Amherst College, and Tufts University. Currently she teaches at the Hudson Valley Writers Center.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after reading Ms. Dobson's blog about why she decided to publish The Kashmiri Shawl through CreateSpace after agents and publishers turned it down, despite the fact that the author has a number of books published by the mainstream press.

An agent told her the big publishing houses weren't interested in a historical novel about 19th century New York that moves back and forth between the city and India. But she might be able to sell it if Dobson added a serial killer.

Anna is a poor widow, eking out a living in New York selling poems to newspapers and magazines. She's back in the states after spending ten years as a missionary in India along with her husband, who she assumes was murdered in the bloody rebellion. But everything changes when she learns the child she gave birth to and was told was born dead, is very much alive. Anna begins her quest to find her daughter at all costs.

I'm not a big fan of historical novels, but I really enjoyed this book. Its rich descriptions of both the squalor of 1860 New York and the exotic lure of India drew me in and I devoured it from beginning to end.

And I'm so glad Dobson left out the serial killer.

[Joyce Yarrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kashmiri Shawl is an engrossing story, set in the mid-19th century. Although it is an historical novel, many of the themes it covers are pertinent today, especially the narrow mindedness of religious fundamentalism. I found the main character, Anna Wheeler, to be believable, likeable, and in the end, admirable. We follow her as she breaks free from her oppressive missionary husband, discovers true love in the arms of an Anglo Indian tea planter, and embarks on an impossible quest to find the daughter she thought had died at birth.

Joanne Dobson is a skillful writer and takes us deep into Anna’s complex world, the stratified societies of both India and America, the early literary scene in New York, and the brutality of the slave trade - which moves from the background to the foreground of Anna’s consciousness as she searches for India Elizabeth. A suspenseful and satisfying read.

[Rebecca C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often, a book, a character, a story comes into your life at just right the time. This time the book is The Kashmiri Shawl, the character is the feisty and admirable Anna Wheeler, and the story is an epic tale of forbidden love, longing, and searching. Joanne Dobson weaves a beautifully visual story (casting the movie in my head...) that carries you along with your new favorite heroine, Anna Wheeler, as she travels the world - from the lush, exotic landscape of India to the rough streets of Manhattan in a chaotic time - finding love, independence, motherhood, and herself along the way. You will cheer Anna on until the very last page! And then you will wonder what's in store for her next...

[Abigail Bok · Rating 5 out of 5]

For veteran mystery author Joanne Dobson, The Kashmiri Shawl is a major change of direction and clearly a labor of love. Set in India and America in the 1850s and 1860s, it recounts the journey of Anna Wheeler Roundtree, from the passive wife of a dark-souled missionary to a free-spirited, independent woman and beyond (avoiding spoilers here). The author’s roots in crime fiction are evident, as the plot is propelled forward from puzzle to reveal to the next puzzle and so on. I didn’t want to put it down at night! There was always a surprise waiting in the next chapter right up to and including the last, even though the ending was more or less the wished-for outcome.

Anna’s story is a remarkable one, full of adventure, tragedy, and joy. Anyone who is a parent will resonate deeply with her passion and determination. I am not a parent, but she made me understand what it would feel like to love a child—no small achievement, as I have often said I simply never got the parenting gene! Her story is set against the backdrop of upheaval and violence in both India and the United States, and if I had a criticism it might be that a few of the historical figures and events felt a little bit dragged into the story. Also, some of the major characters’ points of view seemed a little modern, stretched to reflect contemporary values in order to make the characters more appealing to today’s readers. For the most part, though, the historical context is deeply woven into the fabric of the story; in essential ways, external historical events drive Anna down her path. The world of nineteenth-century New York especially is brought to life in vivid and unforgettable terms.

There were a few points in which the author’s choices were different from those I would make—and I stress that this is not a criticism, because they are perfectly valid choices; but they distanced me personally a little from the story at times. (1) In the first part of the book, the action kept flashing back in time and space to fill in Anna’s backstory; I would have preferred a more linear narrative, which would have allowed the central crisis she faces to burst upon us in a more surprising way, and would have shown us the entire arc of the character’s development, not just the second half of it. I felt we already had been told how to think about certain past events before we learned fully what they were. (2) The narrative writing style is more modern than the setting, dialogue, and letters that are reproduced in the book. This is also a valid choice—and I feel like a hypocrite for differing with it, considering that my own novel does the same thing in the opposite direction, telling a modern story in Georgian prose! So I can’t count this against the book, even though my personal preference for nineteenth-century historical fiction is for it to be written in nineteenth-century language.

I was deeply absorbed and emotionally stirred by this book, and impressed by the quality of the research. I hope the author finds a publisher who will do justice to it and to any future work she produces!

[flo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world was a powder keg: revolution, famine, political an religious persecution all led masses of immigrants to NYC. 1850-60s pre-Civil War is my favorite time/place in history. The Kashmiri Shawl has a new perspective as the heroine Anna, arrives stateside after a revolt in India.

Anna visits slums, orphanages, and the bleakest parts of the city while recalling the vibrant colors and scents of her temporary home abroad. She's a strong, resourceful woman who thinks on her feet as she searches for her missing daughter.

A number of historical topics are cleverly woven into the plot that includes just enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes. I really enjoyed rooting for Anna and learning so much in the process. Finishing it, I also felt the immediate need to watch something from Bollywood.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Kashmiri Shawl by Joanne Dobson

Anna Wheeler Roundtree and her husband Rev Josiah Roundtree were missionaries in India. Anna had secretly wanted to leave her abusive husband. She was warned that was an uprising so she had left and made her way to Calcutta guided by Ashtok.
Anna had fallen in love with Ashtok and left India for the U.S. She had a child which was taken away from her because its skin color was not white. The Matron of the mission in New York City had told Anna the baby had died and instead took the child and placed it in an orphanage for colored children.
Anna never stopped searching for her daughter, in the meantime she had become an established poet. Raising money to search in the south as well as India for her daughter.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise. Plotting problematic. Ending abrupt.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've wanted to read this novel for years because I loved Dobson's mystery series. I flew through those stories, but this one wasn't as engaging; it was actually a bit of a slog. The novel has a good premise with an interesting setting, but the complications became predictable in their repetition. Anna, the protagonist, was a one-note character despite her array of exotic experiences.

[A.J. Fotheringham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

This book is a great read as well as a wonderful glimpse into the world on the eve of the US Civil War and the politics of race. I highly recommend this book.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I found and read this book I had just finished re-reading all of Dobson's Karen Pelletier novels and though I liked them I was often frustrated by the main character's obtuseness and sometimes by the repetition that seemed unnecessary.

This was a whole different ballgame. The Kashmiri Shawl deals with historical and social elements on a much wider scale - racism, classism, misogyny and hypocrisy of religion. Dobson hit it out of the park with this one.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Kashmiri Shawl is a new, self-published, departure for Joanne Dobson, the author of the Karen Pelletier series of academic/book themed mysteries. There are echoes of those mysteries in the new book, for example in the way the author writes poetry in the name of the main character, or in the New York City of 1860, which shares a background with one of the Karen Pelletier books. But the book really stands on its own as romantic historical fiction, skipping between the US in the immediate pre-Civil War period and the India of the Sepoy Rebellion.
The story features Anna Wheeler Roundtree, one time wife of an American missionary to India. When we first meet her, she is eking out an existence in New York City by writing bland religious-themed poetry for New York newspapers at $10 a time. In quick succession, a series of events throw her staid life into turmoil. First, she is approached by a publisher, with the opportunity to make real money from her work, and as a result of this, make her way in more elite society. Then she discovers that her daughter, whom she believed to be still-born, and who was shockingly (for the time) conceived with an Anglo-Indian, is actually alive, and potentially in danger from slave-traders. And while spreading her wings, using her missionary-learned midwife skills, she makes some new friends with inroads into the Underground Railroad. Finally, her bullying husband, long since considered dead at the hands of the rebels in India, turns up demanding that she submit to him. How is a woman, now of independent means and outlook, to react?
The book gives interesting pictures of 1860’s New York, Charleston and Calcutta and the Indian north-east, describing the customs and ways of living in all those places, and Anna’s reactions to them. There seemed to be a lot of pigs in the streets of New York! (The comparisons of Charleston to Calcutta were amusing). It describes a small section of the sepoy rebellion of 1857, and the massacre at Cawnpore, which Anna’s husband claims to have escaped, and which Anna did herself escape. (Interestingly, the British General of Cawnpore seems to have been called Wheeler as well).
I read the book easily and quickly. The story was original, but it seemed a little too simple somehow. I am not sure exactly how to put my finger on that – the concept was good, the settings were interesting, but somehow I was still on the outside looking in. I never really felt that Anna was in real danger, even when walking in Charleston or Calcutta or the Five Point area of New York, and I think the author wanted us to feel that.
I enjoyed it; it was good, but not great.

[Anastazia Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Afro Caribbean Christian who is embarking on becoming a missionary, this was quite an interesting read. The things that white Americans and Europeans did in the world in the name of "Jesus" has always been a grievance to me and is something that believers find themselves still apologizing for because the pain cut deep.

White Supremacy is the demon that some of the characters in this book struggle with, even the missionary, Josiah. He and the southern Americans had strange concepts of salvation that has proven to be very different from how Christ viewed and treated the excluded people of the time of His earthly travels: the poor, sick and the Gentiles. These characters needed their own salvation before they can do their own "evangelism" to "save other souls". It was true when Caroline said in cynicism, "And this...is what they call a Christian land", for it did not at all reflect Christ. It was at times painful to read Anna's struggle to tame who she was for an unloving husband. I guess she too can understand the painful submission of the enslaved. I liked how Dobson painted a reality of how far reaching the socio-religious struggles of being dark skinned was...and I assure you, still is. Slavery is abolished, but white supremacy or light supremacy still exists. From India to America...to the Caribbean it is all the same.

[Abra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Joanne Dobson's academic mystery series, but her two forays into historical fiction are less convincing to me. Actually, where her two interests overlap, which is in the mid-nineteenth century American literary world from domestic fiction to poetry, the novel is quite good. But it's not so convincing in its broad sweep, taking in American missionaries to India caught up in the Great Rebellion.

[Adele]

Did not read it.

[Liadain Clancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous. Inspriring

[Susannah]

I did enjoy this book very much. Dobson uses an interesting approach to historical and geographical fiction.