Mar 20

Mar 20 Burnt Sugar

Author: Avni Doshi
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, a searing literary debut novel set in India about mothers and daughters, obsession and betrayal

“I would be lying if I say my mother’s misery has never given me pleasure,” says Antara, Tara’s now-adult daughter.

In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her marriage to join an ashram, and while Tara is busy as a partner to the ashram’s spiritual leader, Baba, little Antara is cared for by an older devotee, Kali Mata, an American who came to the ashram after a devastating loss. Tara also embarks on a stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents) and spends years chasing a disheveled, homeless artist, all with young Antara in tow. But now Tara is forgetting things, and Antara is an adult — an artist and married — and must search for a way to make peace with a past that haunts her as she confronts the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.

Sharp as a blade and laced with caustic wit, Burnt Sugar unpicks the slippery, choking cord of memory and myth that binds mother and daughter. Is Tara’s memory loss real? Are Antara’s memories fair? In vivid and visceral prose, Tibor Jones South Asia Prize–winning writer Avni Doshi tells a story, at once shocking and empathetic, about love and betrayal between a mother and a daughter. A journey into shifting memories, altering identities, and the subjective nature of truth, Burnt Sugar is a stunning and unforgettable debut.

TL;DR Review

Burnt Sugar is not going to be for everyone, but I found it to be a beautifully, carefully written novel about memory and childhood trauma with an A+ ending.

For you if: You like books about complex mother-daughter relationships, and/or want to add more South Asian authors to your list.

Full Review

“I suffered at her hands as a child, and any pain she subsequently endured appeared to me to be a kind of redemption — a rebalancing of the universe, where the rational order of cause and effect aligned. But now, I can't even the tally between us. The reason is simple — my mother is forgetting and there is nothing I can do about it. There is no way to make her remember the things she has done in the past, no way to baste her in guilt.”

Burnt Sugar, originally published under the title Girl in White Cotton and now listed for both the Booker and Women’s Prize, is one of those novels that will leave you thinking about it for a long time, whether you loved it or not. It took me a little bit to fall into its rhythm, but once I did, I was very much drawn in — and the ending really brought everything together in an impressive, explosive way.

The book is about a woman named Antara, whose mother, Tara, is currently experiencing early signs of memory loss, possibly dementia or Alzheimer’s. Tara was (to put it lightly) not a great mother to Antara growing up, and today Antara must pick apart that trauma as her mother seems to forget it. But memory is personal to each of us, and Antara is not the most reliable of narrators. We flash back between past and present, and by the time we get to the end, who are we to say what is real?

From a craft perspective, this novel is exquisite. Avni Doshi’s sentences are *chefs kiss* and the way she builds and weaves themes and character — the way they crash into each other at the end — is incredibly impressive. It feels quite literary. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve said, like me, it took them some time to fall into the story’s groove. (This is definitely not one to be forced if you aren’t feeling in the mood.) Some ultimately enjoyed it more than others. But everyone agreed that the ending was excellent, and all said that they’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.