The Shadow Bride: A Novel by Roy Heath

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in England, where it was first published in 1991, this seductive family saga from Guyanese novelist Heath (The Armstrong Trilogy) portrays an idealistic, self-doubting doctor who simultaneously confronts a domineering, religiously obsessed mother; racist, condescending British administrators; tensions among Indians, Creoles, Hindus and Muslims; and his own personal quest for identity. In 1929, Betta Singh, born in Guyana to parents from India, returns from medical studies in Dublin and London to become a government medical officer on a British sugar plantation where impoverished Guyanese natives toil despite malnutrition and malaria. Meanwhile, his controlling, widowed mother, who wears trousers ``like a man,'' has fallen under the spell of a Svengali-like Hindu priest who moves in with her, first as her counselor, then as her bedmate, and whose machinations thwart a reconciliation between mother and son. In musical prose, Heath creates complex, convincing characters--like the dressmaker Lahti, emotionally enslaved to a thug who beats her, and Nen Merriman, self-styled marriage counselor and judge who holds an unofficial court to resolve disputes among Creole neighbors. Heath's modest, unpretentious style undergirds a powerful realism as his subtle analysis of family conflicts builds to a tragic and moving climax. (Nov.)