East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York and New Delhi by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York and New Delhi a book by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Written over 20 years, these stories are domestic tapestries of the emotional lives and psychologies of lovers, quarrelling married couples, weary elders, and their restless adult children. Whether in New Delhi or Manhattan, the characters face the universal quandaries of human experience.

Review

"This new collection of stories … reaffirms her as a spellbinding urban fabulist.… Each story reveals Jhabvala's mastery of the form."New York Times Book Review

"Elegantly, even suavely written, each of these pieces has the brooding melancholy of a James Joyce story but with an additional sharpness, a heightened emotional violence that seems somehow more personal than the removal of Joyce's Catholicism."Oregonian, Portland, Oregon

"Jhabvala captures unusual domestic arrangements with a familial intimacy that makes the sudden primal turns of her plots––to sex, violence, betrayal––shocking."The New Yorker

"One of Jhabvala's great skills is the ability to be simultaneously caustic and compassionate about her characters and to combine sensuality with toughminded humor. It is for skills such as these that she is compared with Chekhov and Henry James." Seattle Times

"Every story revolves around fully realized characters, whether a wily Indian politician or a betrayed New York wife, and tells a tale full of emotional drama and truth."Literary Review

About the Author

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is the author of nineteen books. She is the recipient of Booker Prize, a MacArthur fellowship, and has been honored with an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jhabvala's screenplays for Merchant–Ivory Productions have earned two Academy Awards. Jhabvala and her husband divide their time between Delhi and New York.