Review: Losing Touch by Sandra Hunter

Losing Touch: Arjun Kulkani moved his entire family to North London from India. Like many immigrants, he works hard to fit in but also wants to preserve the values and traditions of his homeland. He has studied the English and outwardly makes every effort to blend in - he is careful in his appearance and tries to always be quiet and respectful. Even though he tries so hard to blend in, he is frustrated by his son Murad and daughter Tarani who try to distance themselves from their Indian heritage and adopt the cultural norms of their new home but without his intense desire to fade to the background and not stand out. This generational struggle is only one of many faced by this family especially when Arjun begins to decline from an inherited form of muscular dystrophy which first steals the feeling in his leg and gradually debilitates him until he is completely dependent on his wife, Sunila, for care. With the passage of time and loss of ability, Arjun makes observations about this own life and the family he has built, however clumsily, in London.

 The book opens with Arjun and the family attending the funeral of his younger brother, Jonti. Jonti has died from the muscular dystrophy that Arjun fears and eventually develops himself. This scene at the funeral provides the first snapshot of the Kulkani family including the extended family of Aunts, Uncles and cousins. We meet Sunila, Arjun's wife, and immediately detect her dissatisfaction with life and even with Arjun. There is tension between the Arjun and Sunila which is exacerbated by Arjun's obvious feelings for his sister-in-law, Pavi. While Sunila seems to harp on what they don't have or what she wished was different, Pavi seems to understand Arjun and speaks gently with him. Of course, the move to London and the pressure to fit in has been difficult on everyone and Sunila is no exception - as the book progresses so does an understanding of Sunila's dissatisfaction and what she has also sacrificed to make this move and live this life.

 My Thoughts
This book beautifully portrays the passage of time and the losses and pain which accumulate over the years. Each chapter provides another snapshot of the family - the story is not continuous so much as a series of snapshots but the themes of generational struggle and Arjun's increasing understanding of himself even as his physical abilities decline run throughout these snapshots. We see the children grow and Arjun's generation age.  Interestingly, we also see Arjun become more of an outsider rather than less despite all his efforts to assimilate. Where first his status as an immigrant makes him and outsider, towards the end of the book he is also and outsider within his own family as they live life around him and his becomes increasingly disabled due to his disease.  In this passage, Arjun muses on his status as an outsider:

What importance he used to place on small things: his perfectly ironed shirts, the knife-crease in his trousers, the well-tailored jackets and suits, his meticulously folded socks and underwear, his Kiwi-polished shoes, his leather wallet. These details made him feel a little taller, a little better prepared to face the hostile he had moved to . . . . It all meant something, some sense of striving for decorum and order, some sense of fitting in to the middle-class neighbourhood whose ideals he's never quite grasped. 

The feeling of donning an armor to face a new country or striving but never truly understanding the new country you have moved to is one faced by many immigrants but so poignantly told in this novel. The author has told a beautiful story of a single family through a series of snapshots that captured the big, but most small moments of a lifetime.

I read this book as part of the TLC Book Tour - you can find other reviews of the book here.