The Rice Mother by Rani Manica drew my attention because it is written by a Malaysian woman and the story is set in Malaysia. This alone is a rare treat and not something we often get to read.

The novel tracks 4 generations of a Tamil family from Ceylon living in Malaysia, starting with Lakshmi, the indomitable rice mother herself. She is married off under false pretenses at only 14 to a much older man and sent to live with him in Malaysia. Although he is simple and poor, he is kind to her her whole life and she doesn’t realize until much too late that she actually loved him.

It is the story of her fierce love for her 6 children and the horrible times suffered during the Japanese occupation of WWII when she trys to protect her daughters from Japanese soldiers. The novel  then follows the lives of 2 more generations, ending with Lakshmi’s great-grandaughter Nisha.

It is an ambitious and sprawling saga, huge in its scope and I think overreaching. There were too many new characters introduced in the second half of the novel and the thread was lost on some of the characters I came to care about in the beginning. Manica tried to tie this all up at the end, but I dont think she succeeded completely. The other problem I have with this novel is that it’s just a bit too grim. As I was reading, a line from a Jack Johnson song kept running through my mind: “Where have all the good people gone?” Truly, can everybody be so messed up and depraved?

Still, there was much I loved about this book, not least of which was to be drawn so completely into the setting and taken away to another land, complete with sights and smells and tastes. A good debut and an author to be watched.