Why should I feel this way about travel? What has it ever done to me? Travel is one of those things one generally doesn’t attack in polite company, the world of letters excepted. Its wholesomeness is assumed. It broadens the mind. It makes us empathetic and, by rewarding our curiosity, encourages it to develop further. It teaches people the just-right amount of relativism —the amount that makes them easygoing in company, perhaps usefully pliable in exigencies, but not nihilistic. Only a fool or a misanthrope would criticize travel. Emerson famously did, in his essay “Self-Reliance,” but Emerson is Emerson, and any case he makes for or against anything is arguably negated by at least one of his other essays. That other essay in this case, as in every case, is “Circles,” in which he posits that any truth, as well as its opposite, are both contained on the single line that describes a circle.
Given travel’s salutary reputation, it is no wonder that I am biased against the whole topic. A writer is someone who resents being told that something is good for him, and that this is therefore why he must do it. It’s no wonder, either, if such people repeatedly fling themselves against this broad, smiling enemy, hoping to smite it.
Ghosts, gods, friendship, and love are part of each experience—whether metaphorically or metaphysically—and their interdependence makes the whole narrative feel weightier than its slim length. And yet! Those moments of philosophy are also lifted by humor, so that the experience never feels too heavy. Sky baby and the dragon reappear at just the right moments to alleviate the heaviness of sorrow, and the stories find their proper endings at last. Untold history may be melancholy, but it’s in the process of living that history can be transformed, that stories can be understood, and that justice can, at last, be found.
The story, which plays out in South Asia, Minneapolis and New York, features three generations of women whose preternatural creative talents inspire political change and incite unanticipated tragedy. To those who’d try to categorize this book, best of luck. Is it ambitious historical fiction? A precisely crafted character study? A disarming work of magical realism?
Yes.
Bitterness is never attractive. But good writing is. Liars makes an old story fresh.