STEALING THE AMBASSADOR

Parekh's debut novel is a curious amalgam: part coming-of-age story, part father and son story, part immigrant story and part (a very small part) suspense tale. While none of these stories comes into sharp relief, Parekh never loses control of them, and their poignancy grows as the novel progresses. Rajiv Kothari, the novel's narrator and protagonist, begins with an arresting and vividly told tale about his grandfather. In 1935, in pre-independence India, Rajiv's grandfather blows up a bridge. Though he escapes imprisonment, his young wife does not; after her term, they set up life in a new city with new names and apparently live a conventional Gujarati life. The reader expects, and eventually receives, a revisionist telling of this history. But first Parekh moves ahead to 1966 and the homelier story of Rajiv's father, Vasant, and his immigration to the United States. (Vasant comes to study electrical engineering and stays.) The son's story is implicit in the father's, so that too comes to the foreground. Parekh paints these stories in broad strokes, telling more than he shows, making this part of the novel less gripping but never uninteresting—for Parekh is a keen observer of the immigrant's plight. Eventually, he brings together the strands of his story, sending Rajiv to India, where he learns the real story of the bombing and joins a plot that involves an Ambassador—the Indian copy of a British auto, once India's most popular car. Though Parekh is not yet an accomplished stylist and his narrative shifts are often clumsy, he provokes real feeling. Particularly moving are the letters that close each of the novel's six chapters. Written by Vasant when he first arrived in the States, these letters betray his innocence, humility and hopefulness, and thus the bittersweet compromise of his immigrant life. (Feb. 2)