The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny A Novel

This has been like 20 years in the making. This is by Kiran Desai. And this is what you think of as an, like, you know, old fashioned, sweeping, time spanning, continent jumping, rich kind of romantic epic.

It's lush. It's sensual. It's completely absorbing. There's a real wit to this book.

I was so absorbed in this book that I did not notice that the neighbor's orchard was on fire.

One of my favorite books by far this year was The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia.

And the opening scene is the grandparents are sitting on this balcony, and they're sort of like worrying in the morning in Al-Habod, like in northern Uthar Pradesh in India in the 90s. And they're worrying about like what the cook will make over lunch. And a phone rings, and it's their granddaughter, Sonia, studying in Vermont, crying.

Maureen Corrigan reviews the new novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai which has just been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

It took Kiran Desai nearly 20 years to write her new novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny I mean this as a sincere tribute when I say I'm amazed it only took her that long Desai's near 700 page novel is about exile and displacement not only from one's home country family and culture but also from one's own sense of self.

The multistranded plot roams from locales in India and the US Delhi Goa Vermont Brooklyn with side trips to Italy and Mexico this is a novel of ideas as well as at its most elemental a tangled love story.

Sonia is a depressed college student in Vermont ... the novel opens in the late 1990s Sonia is a depressed college student in Vermont who hasn't been back to India in two years.

The loneliness of Sonia and Sonny Desai has come close to achieving that ideal this is a spectacular novel nearly as abundant as life itself to savor ruminate over and yes even reread.