We Do Not Make Love Here

by Nisha Mehraj

Finalist for the 2022 Epigram Books Fiction Prize

Chandru, a third-generation Singaporean, realises his ambition through an arranged marriage. His wife, Meera, fights her fate by living a double life. Unhappily married, they make sense of their decisions through a study of their own past. Siddharth, their only son, is practically raised next door with their neighbour’s granddaughter Malli.

As the childhood best friends grow up, they helplessly watch their tumultuous love tear them apart. A generation raised on the Singaporean dream gives birth to another sheltered in its shadows. They are not the marginalised or the oppressed, but the ordinary majority doing their best.

Genres: Fiction

248 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2022

About the author

Nisha Mehraj left full-time teaching and became a private tutor so she could pursue writing. The only home she has ever known is Singapore, yet she lives vicariously through her characters and escapes into the safety of the worlds she creates. The many strong women she has met and read about, and her own grandmother’s determination to raise her three daughters as independent thinking women, taught her to have ambitions and gave her the courage to dream. Her short story “Chai” was published in Mascara Literary Review in 2012. We Do Not Make Love Here is her first novel.

Reviews

[Leafartt · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ,, the author explores the theme of love so beautifully here. different kinds of love, between friends, family, lovers, spouses were explored in this story.

one could say that the love between sid and malli was the focal point of the story, but Nisha Meraj used 4 POVs for a reason. imo, Meera's relationships were the most interesting one, and I was most intrigued by her. She was one of the better crafted characters in this story in my opinion, and I kept wanting to know more about her life.

Sid, on the other hand, kind of got pushed to the sidelines as the story progressed, & i found myself becoming less interested in his story, but that may just be me.

as for malli, i was a little confused at why she had hit that huge slump. i know she witnessed THAT scene, but i wasnt convinced that THAT scene could have such a huge impact on someone. again, could also just be me.

on the flipside, i loved the way Mehraj crafted the family dynamics of both Sid and Malli's family. the way she explored the unpleasant sides of family was something i loved, because that IS a true reflection of how most families operate. some families jz aren't truthful to one another. we keep secrets and lie to our family, to the point that the only connection between us and our family is our surname and bloodline.

& while we're at it, i LOVED that most of the characters were unlikable to a certain extent. each of them had their unique flaws and intrusive thoughts, that at first glance may be seen as red flags, i personally felt that it only made them more human and believable.

while the numerous time skips weren't confusing to me, i feel like there is the potential for some readers to be confused as we jump between 4(?) or more time periods throughout this story. jz sth to take note of !

while i think this story was crafted really well, there wasn't enough plot to really suck me into the story. which i uds, since this is a slice-of-life-ish novel, but i hadn't enjoyed it as much as i would have liked to. still appreciate it a lot tho! & props to mehraj for her outstanding debut novel, & being the finalist for the EFBP ! looking forward to more of her works

[Sometimes IRead · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a while to organize my thoughts before sitting down to write this review. I know I seem to be doing that quite often nowadays but We Do Not Make Love Here by Nisha Mehraj really isn’t an easy read.

Mehraj’s characters are so real, they could pretty much walk off the page and take their place alongside us. Each of them were relatable in different ways, yet they were also most infuriating and illogical. I wanted to like each of them but found that I couldn’t. For example, Malli is the girl I’d always wanted to be, smart, fearless, and loyal. Yet, she could be so frustrating, pushing everyone away to the point of ridiculousness.

Each of the characters were so plain in their search for love, at least to the reader, but were anything but when conveying that search to those around them. Instead, they tried filling that void in all the wrong ways and places. It really hammered home the notion that to give and receive love is to be vulnerable. If one isn’t willing to put oneself in such a position, there can be no love to speak of.

Diversity meter:
Singaporean Indian characters

[vanillachips · Rating 3 out of 5]

read the sypnosis of this book at a bookstore and it was thkfully avail on libby to borrow!
unforch i was rly soooo confused throughout the book, and i was so detached from the characters that it was even harder to follow along. and the jumping of timelines rly had me even more confused brah. i felt as disconnected as the sudden jumps n poor links between the pov n timeline events. super hard to understand and get invested on my side. got nibblets of family trauma here and there but still struggled to connect them to the characters and their ways of thinking etc. and it not being a very well known book comes with the con of not much ppl being out there to break it down for me too.... resorted to reading other goodreads review and came across a review that i resonated with - i couldnt rly understand the characters and their actions because of a lack of proper backstories.

gonna attempt to describe what i rmb or understand which may not even be factually correct i must say...
the book follows 4 characters: malli, siddharth, chandru and meera.
meera and chandru wedded thru an arranged marriage, and honestly have a rs of commitment without love. chandru is a secondary school dropout who dives into work to maybe compensate for his own sense of self inadequacy? got abit of whiplash with his unexplained behaviour like talking meera down and threatening to basically f**k her at her relative's wedding, bro that was honestly so bloody random and out of nowhere i was DAMN CONFUSEEDD... speaking of random was his sudden lusting for malli's mom that both spawned and disappeared out of nowherre.
i still struggle to understand meera's character honestly. she was soooo cold (like the way she reacted to her MIL's death, and how she and super odd honestly.... like hownshe craved intimacy in the weirdest ways (like lying naked against surfaces). and frm her thoughts n shit, i honestly thought she was possibly asexual or possessed some form of inability to love? but then she engaged in an affair out of nowhere w this rando, i considered how she cld possibly be acting out of lust w no emotional strings but gurlie was genuinely concerned and affected when the dude passed on. and tbh i also dont unds her ability to form rs w other ppl like the housewives and ahit because her entire internal monologue was filled w sm hatred for the world and life.
siddharth is honestly j a sg boy. turned out pretty normal for someone w weirdass parents, like a mum who forgets she a son and a workaholic dad who treats their neighbour more like his child. it was nice to see his rs w meera as they were kids and idt i fully unds why they drifted the way they did as they grew up. besides siddharth j being a boy who lost sight of his priorities and "forgot"/"overlooked" the girl he truly loved the most this whole time.
malli was described as a highly intelligent kid from the start, both intellectually and emotionally. but i guess she wasnt as perceptive to her own emotions as much as she was towards others' emotions. interesting rs w her and her grandmother, tho i did get confused when her mum and mummy sudd spawned because i had the impression that her geandma was her sole caretaker lol. and tbh im still confused between her 2 mums, i assume theyre les, but im still hving trouble differentiating the personalities of the 2 characters. one of them (idek which bro) will pull some odd behaviour shit j when i think theyre normal. and malli witnessed meera's affair, which supposedly starting off her crazy ass rebel behaviour (im not even fully sure if this is the cause) but honestly everyth is rly so unexplored i rly don't fully unds the cause of her sudden flip and her behaviour n everyth. n how she reconnected w meera and chandru enough to step in (i mean ya they had to step down n shit cos chandru had a heart attack but she was so disconnected bro) and help out in their company in the midst of her rebelling n shit. and buddy is sudd pregnant and im so confused arghh

but the writing was good in the literature sense, like the metaphorical descriptions abt things i often overlook or int odd perspectives i wld nv hv explored on my own
- got me thinking abt my constant greed for more when ive discovered a good thing. malli wanted another dress that she liked and was questioned on why she wanted another when she alr had one, and her reason was for a backup. started thinking on why i alw need more of the same/similar things. not sure if it's because of the emotions associated w finding smth i like, and wanting to replicate those emotions by getting variations of the same thing while still being protected by the safety and assurance of familiarity.
- doing smth out of ur own want and will vs being made to do it. siddharth was comparing his "sympathetic" levels with malli and doing good deeds. started questioning abt whether my thoughts are ever truly original, or if im j riding off the influence of someone else.
- nth in particular triggered this thinking, i think i was j thinking abt the links between the characters and their family trauma, but honestly not so sure how i even spiralled into this reflection. but i started thinking abt why im so bad w waiting that ill do anything to leave at just the right timing to reach exactly on time. sometimes i feel i get equally stressed when im early as compared to when im late. started trying to think and deep dive into why i hv this narcissistic form of thinking to the extent where i rly LITERALLY cannot stand to be early and wait in peace etc. and i did come to a realisation that this kind of stemmed frm my rs w my dad and him picking me up as a kid. like how he was alw late to picking me up frm pri sch. i still rmb when he was so late they closed the sch gates and the vice principal was sitting w me at the bus stop to wait for someone to pick me up. i honestly dont even rmb my emotions associated w that experience enough, to confidently say that there was enough negative emotions and trauma that stemmed from those situations. and then i thought abt how impatient he gets whenever he actually finally reaches to pick me up, and how anxious i wld get if i wasnt ready by the time he arrived, because i was so scared he wld flip his shit on me. started wondering if i associated this anxiety and stress with waiting from young, that i possibly developed a protective mechanism by avoiding situations where i have to wait...? or honestly m i j looking for smth to blame and give myself an excuse for being a shitty person like m i j stirring shit out of nth...? or like is it j simple social anxiety? or m i j a lazy ass shit for not wanting to get out bed to the last min bro...

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never have I witnessed characters in a book that were as real and as vulnerable as those in this novel. The book oscillates between the POVs of four Singaporean Indians as they make sense of life and love, whilst navigating personal trauma, teenage angst and an unhappy marriage.

10/10 would recommend.

[Jolin (twentycharm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

More on my Instagram post to come (such as favourite quotes and highlights), but for now, my review:

Making use of a nonlinear timeline that jumps around portions of each character’s life, Mehraj explores the seemingly ordinary experiences of four characters, allowing readers to delve into their minds and interpret their relationship dynamics.

We see rage, pent-up and many times spilled out through their exchanges with one another, but we also see uncertainty, along with a complicated mix of unnamed emotions that are a constant undercurrent of their lives.

It’s hard for me to name what I loved most about this book, but I can definitely say it was one that made me very emotional while simultaneously soothing me with its melancholic mood. I was also very impressed by the seamless storytelling, and how well Mehraj handled everything, especially the ending when I was so scared of what lay ahead.

I also appreciated the “strong, visceral presence of women as daughters, wives, mothers, girlfriends, and workers”, as described by T. Sasitharan, “which serves to knit the story together,” as their being there was like a warm embrace to me.

I realise now that there isn’t much for me to add as this novel explains itself, but would like to encourage people to read it as it may just shed light on your human experience too. Thank you again to Epigram Books for publishing and sending this my way; I am so glad it surpassed my expectations as my most anticipated read of 2022.

[Tess Blanch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got interested in this book when I was in Singapore last year and saw a copy at a store, since it was also a finalist in the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2022. I was glad it satisfies my curiosity but I didn’t like it as much I would want to.

Chandru, married to Meera, thinks that having an arranged marriage will achieve his ambitions and while his wife is unhappy with her current state and lives a double life. Their only son, Siddarth, is basically raised by their neighbors and grew up being close to Malli, the neighbor’s granddaughter. While as much as they try, it seems that love is not enough for everyone as it breaks them apart eventually.


I like how the story started. I thought it will progress from there with Malli and Siddarth as the main focus of the story. When it shifted to Siddarth’s parents, I am wanting more of Siddarth and Malli’s story, though Meera’s story is the most interesting among the four.

I had a hard time understanding the flow of the story as the timelines jumps from the past to present and back. I got lost a lot of times and lost interest along the way as there were not enough plot to interest me. The ending is a continuation of where the story starts but it seems that nothing and everything happened at the same time. I know what the author is trying to do with the story but I can’t seem to put things together. I just didn’t work well with me.

On the other hand, I love how the author show the readers the family dynamics of these two families. She makes it as real as possible, dealing with the not-so-good sides of the family in a way that we don’t normally see in a story - the lies, the secrets, the sometimes doubt life we live. And while the characters are unlikable, the author makes them as believable as possible. Maybe some of us can relate, some may emphasize with them but you’ll get frustrated with how they make decisions which makes them all the more human.

[lilin23 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I genuinely wanted to feel more emotionally connected to the characters, but found it quite difficult to. Mehraj gave readers insights into their thoughts and feelings, but they were often in snippets and did not have much continuity to link to events in the story.

The story started out promising, especially in their schooling years to understand the development of love and hurt between Malli and Siddharth. But as it progresses further into their adulthood I found that all 4 characters acted in ways I couldn't really rationalise due to a lack of proper backstory. Several events happened without much explanation nor closure too (e.g. Meera and Jun Kiat's affair, Malli's pregnancy)

Though I found Mehraj's writing in terms of jumping chapters between past and present to still be follow-able and coherent, this is a refreshing bonus for me cuz I usually don't work well with books that traverse time. Her starting and ending with the same scene was brilliantly executed to tie everything back to where we started.

[Ksitigarbha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delicate novel with (unfortunately) very unlikeable characters that are nonetheless carefully mapped out in its chapters. A family without any real trauma or drama, but also without forgiveness and love and yet which manages to live alongside each other. I kept waiting for someone to reach a kind of profound insight and to change the nature of the relationships in the narrative, but that did not happen. Maybe the book mirrors real life in this way.

[Tan Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this debut attempts to portray complicated facets of relationships between family and friends, its developments are tend to be cliche-ridden soap opera in style. Also, the subtlety in tone causes the developments of the four protagonists to seem to operate in silo, and the dynamics and interchange of narratives could somehow be tightened, 3 ½ stars rating rounded down.

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

The use of four different POVs in this book did little to help contribute to the reader's understanding of the flow and plot of the novel. While the characters are clearly meant to be unlikeable, I often felt like the roving perspectives reduced much of the novel to a series of vignettes rather than a readable whole.

[Andrew Tran Nam Hung · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite a boring book I must say. There are not many details, and the storyline is hard to follow as the timeline keeps shifting back and forth and between different characters. Also, even after reading the whole book, I still don't understand why the book was titled that way. It has nothing to do with the story or the messages presented in the book.

[Ethan Ganes · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some parts of this book that are honestly very gripping, its like a book of modern manifestations of intergenerational traumas. Impressive for a first time author. The characters however, were not likable enough for me to get over the petty dramas they all seemed to have. Aside from the protagonists, most of the side characters have very real lives!

[Minus One · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought this would be sad from the synopsis but it was more than I expected. A bit slow moving and many perspectives but gave good insight about the life of an indian family in Singapore. We think we know more than we do about anybody's inner life.

[insy]

imperfect and frustrating characters that make you go 😦🧠 my favourite parts were when the author described singaporean life so perfectly I felt nostalgic

I didn't enjoy this as much as I expected but that doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it - give it a try and see how you like it!

[Gabriel Ho · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, singaporean normal people. did not like the ending

[Jacky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very likable, warts and minor quips and all.
Will be looking out for Ms Mehraj's next endeavour.
And that cover. Plus a cheeky, bound-to-get attention title.

[Haneesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟

[s · Rating 3 out of 5]

if we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known

[Clesias · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

[Jill Choo · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some good parts but most of it was all over the place. I did not get the point- it read like a Sally Rooney knock-off.

[Priyashini · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a mixed bag for me. While I appreciated that the characters were not burdened by the status of being a racial minority, the characters themselves seemed quite muddled. Not in a "every human being is grey" fashion. There was a genuine lack of clarity in how the author crafted them.

The prose is pretty easy to read but the time jumps got me confused.

And the ending just left me with a question - what did anybody even want in this book? Did they want anything at all?

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegant prose and compelling characters. Transformative in its approach to relationship dynamics, ethnic and class portrayals in Singapore.

[Ratri Anugrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a #CrazyRichAsians story, but I guess it all started with Chandru and Meera's arranged marriage. Apparently, Meera's darker skin made it difficult for her to find a suitor. Without any other option, she had to accept Chandru from a lower family background. But he was a hard worker. So they built their own company. Chandru handled the creative business, while Meera handled the administration.

They had a son named Siddharth. He was close to Malli, the neighbor's daughter. With his parents busy working, Siddharth spent most of his time at Malli's house with Malli's grandmom and two aunties. Growing up together, Siddharth and Malli's relationships were complicated. For me, it feels like Malli falls too soon, and Siddharth falls too late.

***

It took me quite a while to write the review. I still don't understand what Nisha Mehraj wants to deliver on #WeDoNotMakeLoveHere. That love is complicated? That sometimes commitment works without true love? That man and woman can't stay friends forever? Please enlighten me!

Even so, I enjoy reading this book. Each chapter is written from a different character's POV, which helps me understand each character's feelings and somehow makes the story richer and more enjoyable to read. Compared to Karina's #TheAccidentalMalay (the winner of the same year's award), Nisha Mehraj's writing is also easier to understand for a non-native English speaker like me.

By the book's end, I wanted to read more. Other than the enjoyment I had while reading it, this may have been caused by the confusion of the core story. Maybe, just maybe, Nisha had a lot to tell but limited space to write it. So perhaps, if some stories were cut during the editing process, those would make We Do Not Make Love Here a sophisticated book.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating: 2.5/5
_____
This is a story about ordinary people and their ordinary lives. It is one about two generations of Indian Singaporeans which serves both as an exploration of and a meditation on different forms of love –from friendship love to romance, to familial and conjugal love– to be more specific. Meet Chandru and Meera, who are caught in a loveless arranged marriage yet tied to their shared Singaporean dream, albeit at the cost of love. Both can be said to be from two different worlds: Meera, a dark-skinned lady who is often despised by others in spite of her high level of education; Chandru, an ambitious man who marries Meera for her dowry as the stepping to his entrepreneurship and is looked down upon by the wife due to his low education level. Despite Chandru's undeniable role as the man of the house, his constant efforts in cozying up to Meera, to some extent, suggests a nuanced gender role reversal which I can’t help but to associate with Meera's troubled upbringing. Having grown up with an abusive father and a submissive mother, Meera’s idea of love is twisted and complicated where she hopes to remain empowered and be humiliated by her lover. When it comes to motherhood, her own precarious childhood makes her aware of many limitations as a female. After all, her father is one who favours sons over daughters. That explains her strong urge to hurt the baby Sid or even commit infanticide just to get back at her father. To me, Meera is the one that is depicted in the most striking manner amongst all the characters. Her characterisation suggests that one’s perception of love is the result of where they hail from.

Meet Sid and Maali. The former is Chandru’s and Meera’s son, and the latter is a girl next door who was raised by three unconventional women. As the story progresses, the readers witness their intimacy that has existed since childhood coming to its end as they reach the threshold of adulthood. Both young people who are obviously fond of one another but always decide against confronting and expressing their true feelings. Their reticence about the affairs of the heart, which is a recurring trope in many millennial fiction, reminds me a lot of Salley Rooney’s writing. As they grapple with their long buried anguish, suppressed desires, unresolved confusions, with both chains of past and present shackled to them, they make decisions that appear unforeseeable and unfathomable to many. Nevertheless, what matters is those are their own life choices through which they attempt to take control of their lives.

Truth be told, despite its unmistakable technicality, “We Do Not Make Love Here” is a moderate slice-of-life narrative that doesn’t really appeal to me. However, I did enjoy reading about Meera and find her story pretty memorable for its complexity and ambiguity. Her experiences not only shed light on her psyche as well as her motives behind what she does throughout, but they also paint a portrait of a little girl who manages to survive colourism and patriarchal ideology and grows up to be a free-spirited woman. Her story is essentially about seeing possibilities amidst impossibilities.

[Shelved by Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

it wasn’t absolutely fantastic or memorable to me but i do feel this is a book that does get you to reminisce on your younger days and maybe for indians, will be a book that you can have greater emotional connection to

[Sivasothi N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story weaved through four views within and between families, taking place in a fast developing independent Singapore. It’s a Singapore Indian setting but was unsure how well it services that. 3.5*