Family Fables and Hidden Heresies: A Memoir of Mothers and More

Vrinda Nabar

HarperCollins India

208 pages, R299

The death of the author’s maternal grandfather in World War I has a complex and abiding effect on his spirited widow and two young children. More than 40 years later, in 1961, the trauma following his death resurfaces during Nabar’s mother’s unexpected breakdown. Nabar uses personal experience to discuss notions of the self and identity, the nature of relationships and the inner conflicts that women in her family battled with and resolved, not always satisfactorily.