‘Civil Lines’ book review: When family secrets unfold  

Express News Service

After her mother’s death, 37-year-old Siya returns from London to India, leaving behind joblessness and a failing relationship. Waiting at her decrepit childhood home in Delhi are her estranged older sister, Maya, and her mother’s older sister, Tasha.

London-based author Radhika Swarup had been thinking of writing a novel set in a decaying house. A chance conversation in the house that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables convinced her that houses carry the imprints of their owners’ trauma.

This is possibly why the author spends a sizeable amount of the book’s initial parts drawing visions of the ancient, decaying family home, complete with its clutter, musty smell, gathered dust, exposed wiring, crumbling plaster leaks and damp patches in the walls.

As Siya takes a trip down memory lane in rooms loved, abandoned and forgotten, recalling vivid memories from her childhood, the two sisters begin to mend the cracks within their own strained relationship, sharing confidences and clearing misunderstandings.

Rummaging through the accumulated debris of their lives, they also come across a cardboard box filled with some of their mother’s important papers and correspondence that has been lying buried for decades. It is here that they chance upon a cryptic note that leads them to unravel a curious family secret.

With the help of their aunt, Siya and Maya discover that in the early 1990s, their mother had founded a magazine, which had unfortunately folded up almost as soon as it started.

The sisters sense their mother’s presence in the magazine and in the letters she had left for them to find. They feel that the magazine is their true inheritance, bringing new meaning into their lives. United in their cause, the sisters decide to resurrect their mother’s shattered dream.

As they navigate the worlds of hiring, distribution and marketing for their passion project, the house is revamped anew into an office space. The book goes onto trace the magazine’s progress over the course of the first few months in terms of the response it receives and the trials and tribulations that its creators face.

It also touches on many of the subjects of its articles, throwing light on several burning debates and issues in contemporary India. Needless to say, the book would be of interest to anyone in the field of journalism.

Swarup had previously written Where the River Parts, which was picked as one of Amazon India’s most memorable books of 2016 and longlisted for the Best First Novel Award of the Author’s Club. A light and breezy read, this, her second book, is filled with nostalgia for one’s home and childhood.

While #MeToo and workplace harassment constitute overpowering themes in its latter half, it is most notably the story of “every girl who dreams not of being rescued by a prince but of rescuing others”.