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Simran Singh is a social worker asked to look into a mass murder of a family; a 14 year old girl is suspected, but is she being set up. Simran has to work through prejudice and tradition to find a solution. The problem is that the book doesn't really know what it is. Desai clearly has strong views about the subject she is addressing and she is passionate about it. The role of women in a certain part of Indian society is ca In two minds about this one; it didn't seem to know what it wanted to be.
Simran Singh is a social worker asked to look into a mass murder of a family; a 14 year old girl is suspected, but is she being set up. Simran has to work through prejudice and tradition to find a solution. The problem is that the book doesn't really know what it is. Desai clearly has strong views about the subject she is addressing and she is passionate about it. The role of women in a certain part of Indian society is cantral; however the book is also a detective story and Simran is trying to solve a puzzle. The problem is that the book doesn't make its mind up whether it is a crime novel or a social critique.
There is a devastating point to make about the place of women in Indian society and the demand for sons rather than daughters. Simran is somewhat slow at times but she is likeable; especially because she has loveable flaws and mostly finds the truth by pure accident. This was Desai's first novel and I think she intends to revive Simran in the next novel. I think I will suspend judgement until the next novekl; but this is worth a try; there are some good passages and strong characters. I would like to see some other opinions on this one. ...more
While the story is told by Simran as she goes through her investigation, we the reader are also privy to Durga's diary, notes made at Simran's suggestion. As a result,I was able to figure out the mystery about halfway through the book, but I didn't feel like the story was about solving the mystery as much as it was about watching the way the investigation unfolded -- and how the community responded to the results.
Both Durga and Simran are wonderful characters, absolutely compelling, and Desai's writing reads effortlessly. However, this book has some disturbing elements -- infanticide, child abuse, violent cruelty -- but Desai's inclusion isn't meant to be gratuitous. Knowing that -- and trusting Desai -- I found the end of the book satisfying (I had a gasp-aloud moment at the very last page -- if anyone else reads this, get in touch so I can gossip about it!).
Although this book was written as a stand alone novel, the author was encouraged to write another book featuring Simran and it seems this will become a series. I'm sort of series-ed out at the moment, but Simran is such a unique character, and Desai's writing wonderful, I know I'm going to find the next book.
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I'm conflicted with this review. The positive side of my brain tells me that it tells themes that need to be told, and tells them in a way that made it very easy to continue reading. Not only did I finish the book in four days, but I also felt compelled to do some research about the systemic abortion
Witness the Night is set in a small town in Punjab, and tells the story of aI'm conflicted with this review. The positive side of my brain tells me that it tells themes that need to be told, and tells them in a way that made it very easy to continue reading. Not only did I finish the book in four days, but I also felt compelled to do some research about the systemic abortion and infanticide of female children in an India that cherishes its sons. Did you know that there are only 3 girls for every 4 boys in Punjab - or put another way, one in every four girls is killed before or soon after birth? Even more scary... the gender gap is increasing. Witness the Night speaks of the impacts that this has on girls forced by their families to 'lose' their children, and the poor treatment dished out to many of those girls who survive the slaughter.
The critical side of my brain tells me that the book had a lot of faults.
I read an interview in which Kishwar Desai says that she wrote this, her first novel, in one month. It is very obvious that she is passionate about its messages - this comes through very clearly - but, one has to stop and think how much better it could have been if more time had been spent on it.
In my eyes, the chief problem with Witness the Night is that it is riddled with continual exposition. Almost every chapter has something important to say about the plight of women, and the author's attempts to meld them into the plot are often clumsy. They were generally just preachy monologues by the narrator. I do care about the issues more after reading this book which I suppose was Desai's aim, but I would have preferred to discover the issues and decided what to think about them for myself rather than have them rammed down my throat.
There were other problems. The opening chapter was shocking (which is a good thing!) and held the promise of an intense mystery and drama, but the intensity simply wasn't maintained. Motivations often seemed weak, and there were very few moments that pulled me out of my seat. Yes, it was enough to keep me wanting to read more, but it could have been so much better.
5 stars for the message, 4 stars for the opening chapter, 3 stars for being an easy read, 2 stars for being more mundane than it could have been, 1 star for preaching at me. I suppose that's a 3 point average...
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Perhaps I'm being too harsh, or perhaps I'm being generous giving it two stars. Read it and disagree with me, please, I would like more insight into what someone else thinks of this novel.
Should it have won the Costa First Novel Award? I would like to see the list of other titles in the competition to really judge that this one deserved the honors.
Truly, by the end of the novel, I was just glad I finished it and could wash my hands off of the matter. I was thoroughly disappointed by the writing style and the happy ending to a story of this sort. There was only one chapter that I thought had enough action to make the story move, otherwise, the writing was truly more telling than showing the reader what was happening. The whole novel took place in this character's head. Really, she just needs a good shrink even though she herself is a social worker.
However, I'm glad my GM gave it to me to read. Now if I could just get through the other 1000+ novels and 1000+ books of non-fiction at home.
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The topic was heartbreaking and the story was gripping. But I just felt like the writing and structure left a bit to be desired.
When Simran, a fiercely independent and outspoken social worker arrives in Jullunder to speak with Durga and find out the truth
Set in small town Jullundur (Jalandhar) in Punjab, Witness the Night is the story of a 14 year old girl Durga caught in a nightmare and a 45-year-old social worker Simran who is working hard to find out the truth. When 13 people from a rich and prominent family are killed one night, 14-year-old Durga, the daughter of the family and the only survivor, is the main suspect.When Simran, a fiercely independent and outspoken social worker arrives in Jullunder to speak with Durga and find out the truth from her, she realizes that the incident is not as straight forward as it seems. Durga looks like a scared child but she keeps mum about the incident. It is up-to Simran to find out the truth on her own. As she tries to uncover the truth, she finds that the relationship of Durga with her family has sinister undertones to it.
I cannot tell you how much I loved this book. It deals with a very important subject about female infanticide and the place of women in a conservative society. I could tell the author is passionate about the subject. But in no way does it get overbearing or boring. It's also a page turning mystery where we are kept wondering till the end about how it happened. Although we know what happened by the first page itself, it's still a mystery about why someone would wipe an entire family out.
The book is written from 2 viewpoints, Durga's and Simran's. While Durga's writing is serious and dark, Simran's is sarcastic and funny at times. She is a very interesting lady and I especially enjoyed her interactions with her mother. Overall this is a mystery that is different from many mysteries out there because not only is it page turning but it also deals with a very important subject with honesty and fearlessness.
My review doesn't do the book justice. You have to read it to see how wonderful it is. Highly recommended. Witness the Night is the winner of 2010 Costa First Novel Award.
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I think it is unwise marketing on the part of the publisher to call this a thriller. It is more or less a mystery. But it is not thrilling. At no point did I think the narrator was in any real danger. There is no real suspense. In fact what I loved most about this book is that it is imperfect people, doing their jobs, the best they can, with the cards they are dealt and the realiza
So I found this gem at the Half Priced Book's Warehouse Sale for $1. I thought I would take a chance. So glad I did.I think it is unwise marketing on the part of the publisher to call this a thriller. It is more or less a mystery. But it is not thrilling. At no point did I think the narrator was in any real danger. There is no real suspense. In fact what I loved most about this book is that it is imperfect people, doing their jobs, the best they can, with the cards they are dealt and the realizations that their choices and their loyalties have lead them to this imperfect place. There are also a fair number of people-- not doing their jobs and in fact they have built a career on not actually doing the job they have been hired to do.
I also loved the realness of the cultural history and the illumination of the realities and ambiguities that make up life.
The reality is sexism is alive in well all over the globe and in some cases-- it is deadly.
This is a great read and I already ordered a copy of her other two novels.
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The only reason I'm giving this book 3.5 stars is for the subject the author chose to write about.
This is no way a thriller. Its a crime.fiction which could have been a lot better. Towards the end the story felt very much rushed and that just ruined it for me.
Also, I had solved the mystery long before.
But it has to be remembered that this is a debut novel. Hoping for a better story in the next books by the author.
3.5🌟The only reason I'm giving this book 3.5 stars is for the subject the author chose to write about.
This is no way a thriller. Its a crime.fiction which could have been a lot better. Towards the end the story felt very much rushed and that just ruined it for me.
Also, I had solved the mystery long before.
But it has to be remembered that this is a debut novel. Hoping for a better story in the next books by the author.
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The novel ,albeit short, is much more than a (mass)murder mystery. Without giving away much, it deals with issues like female foeticide, parochial patriarchalism and the nexus between the police, the media, the social institutions and our 'uncivil' s The book has a phenomenally binding start - A 14 year old girl is found alive, tied and tortured, in a burned house, filled with butchered corpses of the rest of her family. Within no time, she turns out to be the prime suspect of the slaughter.
The novel ,albeit short, is much more than a (mass)murder mystery. Without giving away much, it deals with issues like female foeticide, parochial patriarchalism and the nexus between the police, the media, the social institutions and our 'uncivil' society. At places, the writing is brutal and chilling and certainly not unwarrantedly so. The central character is one of the strongest female protagonists I have ever come across and the author apparently, has brought her back in a few subsequent novels. The characters are fictitious but the events, and this is the sad part of our reality, the author acknowledges herself, are real.
For a first time author, this is definitely an extremely fine start. ...more
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This a quick, readable text that straddles genres. In many ways the text felt like it belonged to the hard boiled genre of detective fiction. Within this genre, the text does many admirable things: forcing the focus on crimes of gender violence, and inverting the trope of the gun-clad male quasi vigilante PI with a drinking, smoking, gender subversive, female social worker.
But, for a text based on a horrifying series of events and violence that basically write themselves, the text had pr
2.5/5.This a quick, readable text that straddles genres. In many ways the text felt like it belonged to the hard boiled genre of detective fiction. Within this genre, the text does many admirable things: forcing the focus on crimes of gender violence, and inverting the trope of the gun-clad male quasi vigilante PI with a drinking, smoking, gender subversive, female social worker.
But, for a text based on a horrifying series of events and violence that basically write themselves, the text had problems. The major punchlines and emotional heft fo the story are derived solely from the source material; even in a dry clinical narration the plot would be emotionally charged. Given this, the text needed to be better.
I have found texts that explore similar themes of gender violence and trauma to be particularly effective when they utilize surreal imagery, nonlinear time, disjointed internal monologues and memories from the perspective of survivors, and an unmooring of traditional guideposts for readers as a way of forcing the reader to become immersed in the maelstrom the violence of the plot creates. This text eschews most of these techniques in favor of a frame-novel style approach of an outsider gradually falling deeper and deeper into a isolated, mad, place. I don't think this literary style is as effective for me, as it allows the reader to inhabit the role of naive outsider learning about the horror of the human condition, rather than forcing the reader to gaze at their own complicity in a society where violent predators abound and the narratives one learns from childhood are of violence wreaked on one's own body for any perceived transgressions.
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I really wanted to like this book. I met the author at Hay Festival and she is lovely , and passionate about the lot of women in India.The book starts out well setting the scene and getting you interested in the plot. It is written as a crime novel with a social message in there, female infanticide and women in India. By the middle I had guessed the plot largely and got a bit irritated by the naivety of the main character who is a supposed hard headed spinster but seems to flip at any man who
I really wanted to like this book. I met the author at Hay Festival and she is lovely , and passionate about the lot of women in India.The book starts out well setting the scene and getting you interested in the plot. It is written as a crime novel with a social message in there, female infanticide and women in India. By the middle I had guessed the plot largely and got a bit irritated by the naivety of the main character who is a supposed hard headed spinster but seems to flip at any man who speaks to her. I thought the issues were veiled in the story and actually both detracted from each other. The end seemed a bit rushed and less conclusive than I would have liked.
Overall it was an entertaining read, didnt go as deep as Rohinton Mistry but therefore may make the issues more accessible to some. Written and released in India , some of the nuances I didnt get ( like the horror of a woman on her own unmarried and drinking beer in her forties) may be my ignorance of the strength of social norms in India.
The second book is about the blooming trade in wombs in India, how Western women are using poor women in India as surrogate mothers. I will probably read it as the first book was an entertaining read, just not an all time favourite.
use. It is about female infanticide, gender bias and drug abuse in the PUnjab.
The protagonist is a great character, Simran singh, and through her eyes, we witness the autrocities
of society on vulnerable and weak women. One needs ro have a heart of steel to
realise how indiscriminately and visciously girls are killed at birth or aborted
in some parts of India. A must read to know about the dark side of Indian society.
By Kishwar Desai
State : Haryana
There are a few things and beliefs in this world that makes me feel that we live in a world of irrationality. Gender stereotyping tops the list. But here 'stereotyping' would not be the apt word because the book for which the review follows, has brought hell on earth for two girls because of 'stereotyping'.
Simran, a 45 year old social worker comes to Jullundar in Punjab, to counsel a 14 year old girl - Durga, the sole suspect of 13 murders of her
Witness the nightBy Kishwar Desai
State : Haryana
There are a few things and beliefs in this world that makes me feel that we live in a world of irrationality. Gender stereotyping tops the list. But here 'stereotyping' would not be the apt word because the book for which the review follows, has brought hell on earth for two girls because of 'stereotyping'.
Simran, a 45 year old social worker comes to Jullundar in Punjab, to counsel a 14 year old girl - Durga, the sole suspect of 13 murders of her family. Simran is the only person to believe that Durga, probably is a victim to be a suspect. She then unravels many mysteries which brings in many disgusting issues.
The book is basically about aftermaths of hatred shown towards two sisters born to a very 'orthodox' and rich family in Jullundar for just because they were born female! This family believes that only male children can bring pride in, tries to kill these girls once they were born but somehow their tiny fighting body refuses to die. They are then being abused, deprived of respect, deprived of right to speak etc., And the rest of the story is just tragic to the core with all those murders, mysteries and what not!
This book has took many issues in an umbrella, efficiently. Though the book spans around Simran's dealings with the case, the tit bits and lines of desperation in between by Simran and Durga conveys the message flawlessly. Of course this book is a crime thriller but addressing to the most intolerable issue even in present modern era- female foeticide.
Even after so many woman achievers, provings, debates and reforms the very prejudice against women doesn't sink a bit! Even now women are seen as a marriage material. I could literally feel the author's anger towards this particular issue throughout the book that I had to sigh once a while to calm myself.
The book was so well written that after a point I didn't felt like I'm reading a book but resonating my own surrounding and life in bits!
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Each chapter then transitions to the main section, wh
I put this on my "to read" list years ago for reasons I can't recall, but stumbled across it the other day and finally picked it up. The story takes place in the small Punjab city of Jullundur, roughly 100 miles east of Lahore. The book (and each chapter) opens with an italicized section that we come to understand is a diary of sorts, written by a 14-year-old girl being held in suspicion of murdering her thirteen family and household members.Each chapter then transitions to the main section, which is told by 45-year-old single social worker Simran Singh. She's been invited by an old college flame, who is now the regional Inspector General, to try and get the girl to talk about what happened. Singh grew up in the city, and coming back sparks various reflections on her own school years and childhood. While the horrific murder is the catalyst for the story, it's not strictly a genre story. The book is more interested in showing how even in a modern Indian city, women are subjugated, voiceless, and powerless. Female infanticide and child trafficking lies at the heart of the story, and it's pretty grim stuff pulled from real life.
Singh does investigate and talk to various people connected to the case, including maintaining a running email correspondence with the girl's sister-in-law, who had flown to England and thus escaped being killed. She's more or less warned off several times, and continues to dig away at the truth, convinced of the girl's innocence. As a single person who drinks, smokes, and sticks her nose into things, she's both a genre archetype and, in this setting, a complete outsider.
By the end, the culprits are more or less revealed, even if the various motivations for a coverup aren't fully spelled out. Readers seeking a sense of complete tidiness at the conclusion of their crime stories may not be fully satisfied. There are two more books featuring Singh, and I'd definitely be interested in reading them, although if they're as dark as this one, I'll need to take a break first.
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The dark side of tradition, and unspoken attitudes permeate this novel and the events described. The disappointment o
"Witness the Night" is a chilling novel full of dark themes. 14 year-old Durga is discovered, the sole survivor of a mass murder in her wealth family's home in Jullundur, Punjab. Simran Singh, 45 year old single social worker, with little care for her culture and hometown's rather conservative attitudes towards women, is tasked with drawing the truth our of the terrified teenager.The dark side of tradition, and unspoken attitudes permeate this novel and the events described. The disappointment of bearing female children, to the extent of infanticide or abortion, is also highlighted.
The novel, which alternates between Durga and Simran's points of view, rips your heart and breaks it over and over again. It is intense and sad, but a likely reflection of some harsh realities.
It would have gotten a 5 star were it not for some missed editing opportunities - clichéed writing and the tendency to come across a little condescending towards the country as a whole.
While I'm sure Jullundur, Punjab, may not be the most progressive place, the facts and events in the novel do speak for themselves effectively without the need for it (there is a comment about surviving Indian railways experiences and honestly, many of them are not that bad).
Overall though: a quick and fast-paces read and very much enjoyed!
...moreSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishwar...
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