The Woman Who Knew Gandhi: A Novel

by Keith Heller

Based on an aside in Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, in which he mentions a brief but seductive youthful flirtation with an Englishwoman, The Woman Who Knew Gandhi boldly imagines a long correspondence between a spiritual leader from the East and an ordinary woman from the West. In 1948, just after Gandhi's assassination, Martha Houghton receives a letter from Gandhi's son, who himself lies dying of tuberculosis in Bombay. Having found a stash of her letters to his father, he asks to meet her. The request sends Martha into a tailspin, for her husband knows nothing of her lifelong friendship with Gandhi.
Martha and her husband are forced to reevaluate their long marriage, and she must find a way to reconcile the disparate halves of her life. Moreover, their small community becomes a magnet for the press, and Martha finds her words twisted and used against her. Ultimately, she must decide whether to meet her old son's friend on his deathbed, or to remain in England and mend the rift in her marriage. Charmingly and elegantly written, The Woman Who Knew Gandhi explores the many definitions of love and friendship and the surprises of marriage.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Book Club

207 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2003

Reviews

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keith Heller provides a lovely historical fiction set shortly after WWII in England. The Woman Who Knew Gandhi tells the story from the perspective of a woman who knew Gandhi (I couldn't help myself). Shortly after her parents passing, Martha moved into her aunt's house, which was a questionable affair, it being a quicky hotel type of place and her being so young. Although people question her upbringing, she educates herself in her aunt's basement by reading old books. It is when she is a teenager that she meets the man we all know as Gandhi. At the time, Martha describes him as a boy not yet a man. He is in England to study and has left his young wife and child in India. Martha befriends Gandhi and maintains this relationship of philisophical, relgious, etc. questions thru the post. She keeps this friendship close to her heart, not even telling her husband. When Gandhi is assassinated, her relationship comes to an abrupt halt. It is when Gandhi's eldest son writes her a letter that she begins to re-evaluate her life and her marriage.

I really enjoyed the writing style as well as the plot.

[Rebecca Konik · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Woman who new Gandhi

I gave it 5 stars for the beautifully descriptive chapters, For the closely related behaviors of the marriage couple, similar to mine....how well he had described those moods, and how I found a somewhat solution to them as well.. Thank you Mr. Heller

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely story but slow to start.

After Gandhi's assassination in 1948, Englishwoman Martha Houghton remembers her past 60 years which crossed paths with him. A couple months later, she receives a letter from Gandhi's son who is now dying of tuberculosis. This letter tells Martha that he has photos and the letters she wrote to his father and he could mail them to her for a fee.

Martha has been married to Samuel for decades and has three grown children. Yet, she has never told Samuel that she met with Gandhi and was still corresponding until recently. It was her secret which she told her only her best friend. She and Gandhi's relationship was platonic, like brother and sister. One day Samuel discovers this truth and gives her the silent treatment then he leaves to visit his half-brother. Martha and Samuel finally talk about this relationship and she thinks this marital crisis is over. However, she decides to visit Gandhi's son in Bombay and without Samuel. Again, he is furious..

This is a story about love: intimate love, amorous love, platonic love. As Oliver (Samuel's half-brother) said "the writing, the talking and the walking, and the relaxed sharing of your hopes and fears -- all those things are love." During her trip to India and the Elephanta Caves, she learns the three traditional Sanskrit classifications of love: love forbidden, love in separation, and love in union.

This brings to mind the question of a married woman having a friendship with a man, or vice versa, a married man having a friendship with a woman. Obviously in 1948 the societal norms frowned on this type of friendship, but what about in the 21st century? Is this just a friendship or is is the love that Oliver describes?

Once I "got into" the story, I enjoyed it. There was a lot of time describing Elephanta Caves in India. Was it really necessary or did I miss symbolism?

Lovely.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imaginative story of a long-term, long distance relationship between Gandhi and an English housewife. A tenderly written book, the author made a rather unlikely pairing seem possible. This book surprised me, I could not put it down. Excellent.

[Vaishnavi Hardas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very dull and slow paced book. Didn't feel like completing. Author should have made it interesting, would have turned in bestseller.

[Susan Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a wonderful book. It had such an unusual premis but it worked so well. The different characters were wonderfully described. I felt like I knew them.

[Nitya Iyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someday, I'd love for someone to find a batch of the hundreds of postcards I've sent to friends over the years and use them to recreate the relationship I had with that friend and the person I was. What sketchy details would be picked out to support what shaky theories?

Heller's Woman Who Knew Gandhi tries not to be a history of Gandhi's suspect relationship with a girl from his days as a student in Britain. That would be far too People Magazine for a true historian. Instead, the story purports to focus on the attitudes of people in small town England towards India, Indophiles, and one particular Indian (Gandhi of course!).

I picked it up hoping for a look at India through the eyes of a Brit who really understood the history and flavor of the country. But it's elephants and snake-charmers galore. The British neighbor drinks too much tea and the charming Indian professor wears glasses that are perpetually sliding down his nose. The pyramids can be seen from Suez and the husband whittles toys for the grandchildren.

It's not a total loss though. The writing is entrancing in its attention to detailing retired life and the woman's confusing about her past fairly mirrors the questions any woman who has lived just a bit would ask herself.

So I wouldn't actively recommend it to anyone. But if it's lying around, go ahead and give it a read. Just don't expect much more than fluff.

[Candice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This entire book was based on a short passage in Gandhi's autobiography wherein he mentions a brief youthful flirtation with an Englishwoman. Since the passage is so brief, the author had lots of freedom in fictionalizing their story.

He chose to make the Englishwoman, Martha Houghton, an ordinary English housewife, which made for good reading. Most of us can identify with ordinary people, even a 75-year-old Englishwoman in 1948. The author imagines that the initial meeting led to half a century of correspondence and a few other meetings when Gandhi visited England.

Although the meetings and letters were not of a romantic nature, Martha has hidden them from her family, except for her son. Now when she receives a letter from Gandhi's oldest son, the cat is let out of the bag and her husband and two grown daughters are made aware of the relationship. How this knowledge affects her relationship with her family is the remainder of the book. It left me wondering what I would do in a situation like this, although one has to remember that this was 1948 and not 2007.

The end was fantastic. The trouble with talking about endings is you can't really talk about them without ruining the book, which I do not want to do. So, as I used to write in my elementary school book reports, "you will have to read the book to find out."

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love accounts like this! One of my favorite books, That Same Flower by Jostein Gaarder, builds on a relationship St. Augustine had before he renounced sensual love. While all of Heller's book is pure speculation, it is told in such a realistic way that the reader is immediately brought into the fantasy.

The book focuses less on Martha's time with Gandhi and more on how his assassination affects her, then the revelation to her husband of her years of friendship with this famous man of peace. Martha receives a letter from Gandhi's son and she is forced to confront what she has hidden for decades. This throws Martha and her husband into a state of reflection, her on the life she could have had; and him wondering how he could have lived this long with his wife and known nothing of his wife's friendship.

Once the news media gets wind of the relationship, they do what the media normally does, distorts the truth until it is unrecognizable. This affects Martha and her family, but that storyline is very secondary to the emotions that each character in the book feels. In the climax, Martha travels to India to confront Gandhi's son on his deathbed.

This book was extremely interesting and I would recommend it.

[Memoree · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about a woman, Martha, who has had a life long friendship with Gandhi. She met him as a teenager before he was anyone famous and they kept in touch mostly through letters ever since. The book takes place shortly after Gandhi's murder and it is about her reaction to his death and her having to deal with her marriage, since her husband didn't know anything about her long standing friendship, other than the story of their first meeting. The author does a good job of illustrating Martha's ambivalence since she's not really sure how to feel in this unusual situation. I did find that the pace was a tad slow at times though and the author, who is male, didn't always nail writing from the perspective of a woman. The story is interesting and there are some good poignant observations that make it worth a read.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this a lot more because of the intriguing plot line - a fictional account of an Englishwoman whom Ghandi had a friendship with (she is mentioned in his autobiography so she was a real person but not much is known about her). The book is beautifully written but I disliked the main character enough to really not be able to enjoy the book very much. Some women in my book club loved this book, however.

[Iva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the idea of a novel developed from a mention in Gandhi's autobiography that he had had a friendship with an Englishwoman. Heller does an admirable job of expanding this. Covers family reactions to her friendship--she keeps a lifetime correspondence with Gandhi a secret from her husband--and it makes the townspeople regard her as different. The novel had a charm and a nice feel for post WWII England.

[Merry Rassman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am adding this book to my bookshelf, in retrospect. I read it perhaps 7 years ago and remember thinking that it was one of my favorites. So much so that i lent it to a friend at work, along with glowing reviews with a request that she remember to return it even if it took her a while to get to it. Sadly, she never returned it. But! I remember what a wonderful, and yet deep story this was. A good read!

[Alesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book, surprisingly short and yet very deep. The author sketches out a correspondence that Gandhi actually had with an Englishwoman. In doing so, he asks important questions about the nature of friendship and marriage, and how relationships change over time. The language is gorgeous yet spare. I enjoyed every minute of it.

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this 3.5 stars. It would have felt more dynamic if it was non-fiction. It did represent a perfect balance of a love story that wasn't really a love story. I think everyone can relate it to a relationship they've had at one time or another-- a relationship of their own that they thought was more (or less for that matter) than what it really was.

[Carol]

She is an English matron, and the other man was Gandhi. An enticing premise for a novel that explores postwar England and its relationship w/India, a woman's independence, and the fragile bond of marriage. It's a surprising sleeper of a novel that would make for an excellent book club discussion.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing was lovely and thoughtful in this story about an imagined friendship of many years between an English woman and Gandhi. The story also explores marriage and relationships within and without families. Very well done; I found this book at a library book sale, and I'm glad I read it.

[Edith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books like this that imagine a facet of a historical figure's life and fleshes out what might have been . . .

[Laurel]

this is written by Bonnie France's paramour! I actually enjoyed it and even read another he wrote, "Snow on the Moon."

[Bcoghill Coghill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting due to the Gandhi link but unexpectedly as relates to older people relating to their adult children. Probably, because that is where I am in the life cycle.