Amina, a young woman from Bangladesh, has always wanted to live somewhere else. When, at her parent's urging, she goes online to a dating service, she connects with George, a shy thirty four year old electrical engineer who lives in Rochester, New York. We learn how the two first begin to communicate, how their interest in each other grows, until George takes the big step of flying to Bangladesh to meet Amina and her family. All goes well and they agree to marry, Amina coming to Rochester to live, where she will get a green card and after three years, she will be able to apply for citizenship.
We see the relationship through Amina's eyes, a woman struggling to understand herself, her role as a wife, in a culture totally different from her own. Freudenberger is very good at showing the differences in the two cultures, the two families, Amina's close, even intimate, whereas George's family is dysfunctional, a crazy mother, and a hippie sister. Both families, however, are welcoming to the new spouse, so that Amina does not feel ostracized or left out by George's family. She eventually gets a job in a Media Center, loses it because of a draw down, then ends up working at Starbucks. She hopes to get a college degree but George ends up losing his job, so their finances are strained.
Two major problems rear their head. One, Amina discovers that for a time, during their email courtship, when George seemed to lose interest for a couple of months, he was living with his step sister, fathered a child, though it was eventually aborted. This sister, Kim, ends up befriending Amina and never tells her about her relationship with George. When Amina does find it out, she distances herself from Kim and she distrusts George's motives from then on. The second problem is familial. Amina all along has assumed her parents would eventually come and live with her and George, a typical Indian way of doing things. George is not sold on the idea but eventually acquiesces, especially after Amina learns about his tryst with his step sister Kim.
The second half of the novel takes place in Bangladesh, when Amina goes to bring her parents to the United States. The return after three years is one of nostalgia for Amina as she realizes how much she has missed her extended family, her small town, and her parents. Complications arise in the getting of visas for her parents, lengthening her stay. This gives her time to reconnect with a childhood friend, Nasir, a possible suitor at one time but deemed unsuitable by her parents. Now, he's their savior, helping them with visas, allowing both Amina and her parents to stay in his house. Amina's affection for him rekindles, as she sees how he's changed, how he treats her parents. They have a brief kiss on a roof top, but both stop knowing it's not the right thing. They avoid each other when possible from the kiss on, but Amina continually thinks about Nasir in ways she never thought about George. The reader, as a result, is never sure if she will return to George or throw it all up and stay with Nasir.
Before they are able to fly to the State, Amina is made aware of some shady dealings by her father; it's not clear if he's guilty of theft or not but a antagonist throws acid on him in the bazaar and he is rushed to the hospital. He slowly recovers, gets his visa finally, and the family says good by to Nasir at the airport, then they get on the plane. The novel ends with a letter written by George's sister, Kim, for Amina in which she explains why Amina ought to win a 10,000 dollar Starbucks scholarship. The letter wins the award and we assume Amina and her parents return to George in Rochester and life goes on. In the end, she does the right thing, for her and George and her parents, sacrificing her love for Nasir for her parents and a new life in the States. Our feelings about George and Amina are mixed, as they both have their virtues but also their weaknesses, making them human I suppose. Nothing is as it seems, especially in a relationship,
No comments:
Post a Comment