Thrity Umrigar talks about writing her ninth novel, 'Honor,' about ethnic conflict and fundamentalism in India, during a populist uprising in the U.S.
Thrity Umrigar wants to talk about megachurches, which seems both apropos and slightly incongruous. Her new novel, “,” turns on India’s two major faiths, Hinduism and Islam, and the violence that can erupt when an extremist faction holds sway.
pick up ‘Honor’ and think, ‘Wow, why do I believe what my pastor says when he’s saying the kinds of things that sound nutty coming from one of my characters’ mouths?’”If this kind of secular awakening is unlikely, Umrigar thinks she might know why.
A clue to her perspective comes from Sarah Willis, a novelist and the fiction buyer at Loganberry Books in Cleveland who has known Umrigar for nearly 20 years. They meet regularly for lunch with a group informally known as “The Pen Women” to talk writing — but not always. In “Honor,” that person is an Indian American journalist, Smita Agarwal, who reluctantly flies to India to help Shannon, a colleague sidelined with a broken hip. Shannon has been covering a powerful story about a young widow whose brothers killed her husband, Abdul, and disfigured her. The widow, Meena Mustafa, has decided to take her brothers to court, an almost unprecedented move in the realm of honor killings.
“Honor” is the first of Umrigar’s novels to be published by Algonquin Books; Executive Editor Kathy Pories says it was “the simplicity of the title,” with its many connotations, that first struck her. “You don’t know what it means until you read the book.” But it was the author’s “effortless writing” that made her want to work with her. “You trust her. You can tell that she has so much affection for India, through dark moments and beautiful moments both.
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