Book Review: The Night Of The Storm by Nishita Parekh

Jia Shah feels like the biggest failure in the world. After a messy divorce from her ex-husband Dev, she moves from Chicago to Houston with her twelve-year-old son Ishaan in order to live closer to her older sister Seema. Jia’s dead-end office job barely pays the bills, but her bigger concern is the behavioral issues Ishaan has started to display at school. Overwhelmed and fearful of Dev trying to assert his custodial rights, she makes the mistake of relying on Vipul, Seema’s wealthy husband, for help. 

It doesn’t feel wrong, at first: after all, Vipul is supposed to be family. And it’s not like she has any friends in the area, besides Seema’s circle of social-media-conscious and desperately bored housewives who gather at cocktail hours and ask her nosy questions like:

“You’re not dating?”

 

“No.”

 

“One-night stands with younger men at least?”

 

Another shake of the head from Jia. Sweat rolled down her back, and she longed to pull down the band of the shape wear digging into her stomach.

 

Shefali took a gulp of her drink, leaving red smudges on the rim, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Then what are you using all this freedom for? To sleep?”

 

Freedom? Jia grimaced as her dejection gave way to reproach. It wasn’t enough that Jia’s marriage was a failure; apparently, she was doing divorce incorrectly too.

All of this would be annoying but bearable: in the time-honored tradition of harried women everywhere, Jia would likely muddle through somehow. But when Hurricane Harvey descends on Houston, her everyday dramas take a turn for the deadly serious, especially when she gets an emergency evacuation notice for her apartment building.

Seema insists that Jia and Ishaan come to ride out the storm at her gorgeous mansion, conveniently located on higher ground. Jia wavers until she gets a text: Dev is in town and needs to talk to her. Wanting to get her somewhat temperamental sister on her side just in case the custody dispute gets uglier, Jia agrees to stay with Seema’s family, even if the last thing she wants is to be in close proximity with Vipul.

Fortunately, she has more than just Seema to act as a buffer between herself and her brother-in-law. Seema and Vipul’s miracle baby Asha serves as a welcome distraction for both her and Ishaan. Vipul’s perpetually grumpy mother is less adorable but at least ensures that her son is on his best behavior whenever she’s around. Vipul’s brother Raj and his white American wife Lisa have also come to the house for refuge instead of going to a government-run shelter. But as the waters and tensions continue to rise, Jia will come to regret her decision to be here, even before a murderer strikes and the lives of both her beloved son and herself are put into imminent danger.

This isolated manor house mystery has plenty of twists and turns that Nishita Parekh skilfully unfolds through a narrative that goes back and forth in time. Jia isn’t the smartest or most likable protagonist but she’s certainly realistic, as her neuroses and assumptions too often get the best of her. Ms Parekh makes it very clear, however, that this is all part of Jia’s journey towards growth, even if she has to survive a natural disaster and at least one murder in order to get there.

Even more compelling than Jia’s relatable journey is the trenchant commentary on Indian Hindu immigrant mores. In only one example, Seema’s mother-in-law had not been happy about her younger son wanting to marry a white woman:

Grandma was initially vehemently opposed to Raj’s interracial marriage. “I’ll eat poison before I let you marry her,” she had threatened.

 

But everything changed when Raj brought Lisa along to a Diwali celebration and all the Desi aunties got a look at his girlfriend.

 

From the moment Lisa stepped in the room, a repressed reverence for white skin activated within the crowd like a long-buried gene, and they gushed over how perfect she was.

 

Suddenly, Grandma found herself the object of envy for having a foreign bahu.

Wry, funny and suspenseful, The Night Of The Storm is a wickedly observed murder mystery set against a unique background featuring characters under-represented in Western crime fiction. At its core, however, this is a novel about family and making hard choices, not because the outcomes are what you want but because they are what’s genuinely best for everyone involved. The ending may not please those who prefer a strict interpretation of the law but the community justice approach to retribution certainly feels fitting – at least for the guilty who are actually caught and punished for their crimes.