Annotated: Burnt Sugar by Anvi Doshi

 

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

Author: Avni Doshi

Title: Burnt Sugar

Original Title: Girl in White Cotton

Original Publication Date: August 25, 2019

Number of Pages: 288

Geographical Settings: Pune, India. Bombay, India

Time Period: 1980s-2010s

Subject Headings:

-Psychic Trauma

-Psychological Fiction

-Mother and Infant

-Parent-child Relationship

-Alzheimer’s Disease

-Arranged Marriage

-Ashrams

Plot Summary: Antara hates her mother, Tara. She also loves her. Tara hates her daughter and loves her as well. This contradiction defines their relationship all throughout their lives, from Tara fleeing her arranged marriage with baby Antara, to living in an ashram, to being homeless and becoming dependent on extended family to survive.

As Tara comes to be stricken with Alzheimer’s, Antara must process the trauma she has suffered at the hands of her mother, while becoming her primary caregiver. The novel follows Antara’s thoughts and actions throughout this upheaval, looking back in time and weaving strands of resentment and empathy together to weave a complicated and tumultuous relationship.

Appeals:

-“He says my mother and I have always shared some version of our objective reality. Without me, her ties to that may have loosened, sad but true – yet on the other hand, as a caregiver, the distance might be good for me. It is difficult when everything starts to vanish.” (p. 136) – Themes of memory, gaslighting and differing perspectives on the same event color how Antara and Tara are constantly at odds with one another over their shared experience as mother and daughter.

-“I believed that this want to be older meant that age would answer all my questions, that my desires would be fulfilled at a later date, but as the years pass and I wish for youth once more, the habit of waiting has already been instilled. It’s deeply ingrained, something I can’t seem to unlearn. I wonder if, when I’m old and frail and can see the shape of my end in front of me, I will still be waiting for the future to roll in.” (p.159) – Melancholic introspection, melding fears, anger and regret with a cherishing nostalgia are constant in Antara’s thoughts. The constant conflicting emotions cause just as much conflict internally as there is external with her mother.

-“She named me Antara, intimacy, not because she loved the name but because she hated herself. She wanted her child’s life to be as different from hers as it could be. Antara was really Un-Tara – Antara would be unlike her mother. But in the process of separating us, we were pitted against each other.” (p. 210) – Deep empathy for circumstance and human emotion makes the conflict between mother and daughter nuanced and multi-dimensional.

3 Terms that Best Describe the Book:

-       Trauma Processing

-       Family Drama

-       Horror of Domesticity and the Mundane

Similar Authors and Works (Fiction):

I’m a Fan (2022) by Sheena Patel – A similar analytical, introspective work where the narrator makes melancholy, sometimes humorous observational remarks about their relationship and the world around them.

Left Neglected (2011) by Lisa Genova – Another narrative dealing with the traumas of mental illness and caregiving, this novel follows a woman who undergoes massive brain damage after a car accident, and must now be cared for by her family and, especially, her once estranged mother.

One Crazy Summer (2010) by Rita Williams-Garcia – Another traumatic yet sometimes humorous novel following eleven-year-old Delphine as her and her sisters are sent across country to spend a summer with their estranged mother, who is an active member of the Black Panther party.

Similar Authors and Works (Nonfiction):

I’m Glad my Mom Died (2022) by Jennette McCurdy – A memoir by the author, detailing her strenuous relationship with her overbearing and exploitive mother who forced child-stardom on her.

Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict (2021) by Joshua Coleman – An examination for parents of the how and why adult offspring may estrange themselves from their parent. Examining the situations through lenses of culture, trauma, and therapy for parents wishing to attempt to reestablish contact.

Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Adult Children and Parents (2008) by Jane Isay – Equally written for both parents and their adult offspring, the book is an examination and guide for how to navigate a child coming into adulthood. It is a collection of interviews and stories and the analysis thereof by those that have gone through the process.