Shauna Singh Baldwin's What the Body Remembers begins and ends with rebirth--an apt metaphor, perhaps, for the tragedy of Indian partition that forms the backdrop for her story. Though politics overshadows the lives of all the characters, the heart of this first novel is in the home where Sardarji, a middle-aged Sikh engineer, has brought his new wife, 16-year-old Roop. The only problem is, his current wife, Satya, is less than thrilled about sharing hearth and husband. Satya's inability to bear a child has led to Sardarji's recent marriage, and this fact, combined with jealousy has turned her heart "black and dense as a stone within her." Her rival is not only 25 years younger, but of considerably lower social rank, and her husband's obvious infatuation with Roop rankles considerably: Can a young woman ever know his friends and laugh with them in that rueful way? How will a young woman know that he breathes deeply when he thinks too much, that he wipes his forehead in the cold heart of winter when the British settlement officer approaches to collect his yearly taxes? How can a young woman know how to manage his flour mill while he is hunting kakar with his English "superiors"? How will she know how to give orders that sound as if she is a mere mouth for his words? How will she know that his voice is angry with the servants only when he is tired or hungry? How can she understand that all his talk of logic and discipline in the English people's corridors and his writing in brown paper files about the great boons of irrigation engineering brought by the conquerors are belied by his donations to the freedom-fighting Akali party? The rift between the two wives widens when Roop gives birth, first to a daughter and then to a son, and both children are sent to Satya for rearing. Eventually the younger wife demands the ouster of the elder from the household, and Satya is sent away. But her spirit is not exiled entirely, and years later, when Roop and Sardarji find themselves swept up in the bloody partition of India and Pakistan, it is memories of the elder woman's strength and wisdom that Roop draws on to survive. Baldwin develops her characters' personalities and interactions against the backdrop of changing Anglo-Indian relations; sometimes the political bleeds into the personal, as the novel juxtaposes India's struggle for independence with the smaller outrages and betrayals Satya and Roop suffer at their husband's hands--and each other's. What the Body Remembers is a powerful combination of historical and domestic drama, marking a promising debut for Shauna Singh Baldwin. --Sheila Bright

From Publishers Weekly
The dramatic and brutal story behind the 1947 partition of India, as played out in the region of Punjab, is the compelling backdrop for this stunning first novel that entwines the fate of three remarkable characters: Sardarji, a wealthy Sikh landowner whose heart is in India, but whose head is in England; Satya, his constantly scheming, feisty wife who lives for her husband but cannot give him children; and Roop, Sardarji's second, much younger wife, married for the express purpose of providing the family with an heir. Intensely atmospheric, the novel contains lyrical descriptions of daily life in a village with dusty fields of maize and clusters of homes; the cinnamon, anise and fennel smell of Satya's kitchen; Sardarji's Oxfordian attire and his spindly-legged English furniture. Baldwin, who grew up in India, skillfully creates an exotic milieu where women are sheltered from the outside world and struggle for influence over their families. As headstrong Satya, more involved in her husband's affairs than most of her peers, and demure Roop, trained to exercise traditional feminine wiles, battle for Sardarji's favor and the children Roop soon produces, Sardarji is increasingly distracted by the furor over independence and the future of the Indian state. Baldwin achieves an artistic triumph on two levels, capturing the churning political and religious history of modern India and Pakistan as she explores memorable transformations: of Satya, from a dominating force in her family to a lonely outsider; of Sardarji, from an idealistic, ambitious engineer to a hardened, more realistic civil servant; and finally, of Roop, from an arrogant, self-centered daughter to a selfless wife and mother who becomes the backbone of her family. 6-city author tour; simultaneous publication in the U.K. and Canada; rights sold in Germany, Italy, France. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Canadian-born Baldwin, of Indian descent, lives in Milwaukee with her Irish American husband but sets her debut novel in an India soon to be torn by partition. More intimately, the story concerns the relationship between the two wives of a Sikh landowner. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Ron Carlson
In What the Body Remembers, with her sharp focus on women in such turmoil, Baldwin offers us a moving and engaging look at 20th-century India's most troubled years.

From Kirkus Reviews
A richly textured, often poetic story of one East Indian womans tumultuous personal fortunes as they develop against the backdrop of Indias independence. Growing up without a mother in a world in which myths are the only luxury, Roop, an ambivalent Sikh, dreams of escape. Her prayers seem answered when the Sikh Sardarji, a wealthy, Oxford-educated engineer working for the British, asks for her hand in marriage. Sardarjis childless marriage to Satya has prompted him to seek a fertile second wife. But Satya, a sophisticated, well-mannered woman who resents the English intrusion on her homeland, is anguished by this attractive peasant rival from the village who has stolen Sardarjis attentions. Long-suffering Satya is the spiritual core of India; Sardarji, clever, argumentative, and self-possessed, betrays her in an echo of his equivocations between his people and his admired superiors. Roop bears first a daughter, Pavan, who is given to Satya as an expendable misfortune, and then a son, Timcu. When Timcu is sent to Satya as well, Roop can take no more, and insists that Satya be exiled from the household. Her heart broken, Satya dies in 1943, as India is seething with tension between Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh factions. Ghandi rises to power, and the British yield India. Though the partition of Pakistan fuels talk of a Sikhistan, there is no homeland for Sikhs, and so Roop and Sardarji embark on an agonizing 100-page odyssey to Delhi and safety. Upon returning to her childhood home, Roop finds desolation and deathand the place from which she once ached to flee now lost to her. Newcomer Baldwins themethe grueling uses to which womens bodies and spirits are put, and their abuses at the hands of mencombines with the political analogue of Indias struggle for independence to produce a plush, sensuous drama. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With her father in debt and her mother dead, it is with elation that 16-year-old Roop learns she is to become the second wife of Sardarji, a wealthy Sikh landowner whose first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him a child. Roop believes that the strong-willed Satya will treat her as a sister, but their relationship swiftly becomes ominous and complicated, especially when tensions between Hindus and Muslims set in motion the turbulent period of India's history known as Partition.

Author Biography: Shauna Singh Baldwin was born in Montreal and grew up in India. She is the author of English Lessons and Other Stories and the co-author of A Foreign Visitor's Survival Guide to America. The story that was to become her first novel, What the Body Remembers, was awarded the Saturday Night CBC Literary Prize. She presently lives in Milwaukee.

SYNOPSIS

Roop is a village girl in Punjab, India, in 1937. The coming partition between India and Pakistan is going to change the world she lives in forever, but she has more immediate concerns. Her mother is dead and her father deep in debt, so it is with elation that she learns she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner, Sardarji, twenty-five years her senior. Sardarji's first wife, Satya, is forty-two years old and has failed to bear him any children. Roop initially believes that Satys will treat her as a sister, but their relationship becomes far more complicated and ominous as they begin to struggle for control over the children to be born and for the affections of their husband.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The dramatic and brutal story behind the 1947 partition of India, as played out in the region of Punjab, is the compelling backdrop for this stunning first novel that entwines the fate of three remarkable characters: Sardarji, a wealthy Sikh landowner whose heart is in India, but whose head is in England; Satya, his constantly scheming, feisty wife who lives for her husband but cannot give him children; and Roop, Sardarji's second, much younger wife, married for the express purpose of providing the family with an heir. Intensely atmospheric, the novel contains lyrical descriptions of daily life in a village with dusty fields of maize and clusters of homes; the cinnamon, anise and fennel smell of Satya's kitchen; Sardarji's Oxfordian attire and his spindly-legged English furniture. Baldwin, who grew up in India, skillfully creates an exotic milieu where women are sheltered from the outside world and struggle for influence over their families. As headstrong Satya, more involved in her husband's affairs than most of her peers, and demure Roop, trained to exercise traditional feminine wiles, battle for Sardarji's favor and the children Roop soon produces, Sardarji is increasingly distracted by the furor over independence and the future of the Indian state. Baldwin achieves an artistic triumph on two levels, capturing the churning political and religious history of modern India and Pakistan as she explores memorable transformations: of Satya, from a dominating force in her family to a lonely outsider; of Sardarji, from an idealistic, ambitious engineer to a hardened, more realistic civil servant; and finally, of Roop, from an arrogant, self-centered daughter to a selfless wife and mother who becomes the backbone of her family. 6-city author tour; simultaneous publication in the U.K. and Canada; rights sold in Germany, Italy, France. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Canadian-born Baldwin, of Indian descent, lives in Milwaukee with her Irish American husband but sets her debut novel in an India soon to be torn by partition. More intimately, the story concerns the relationship between the two wives of a Sikh landowner. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

New York Times Book Review - Ron Carlson