Rosarita

In this provocative if underdeveloped offering from Desai (Fasting, Feasting), an Indian woman studying Spanish in Mexico learns her late mother took a similar path many years earlier. While on a park bench in San Miguel de Allende, Bonita is approached by an older woman named Victoria, who calls her an “Oriental bird” and says she looks just like her mother, Rosarita. Bonita initially disbelieves Victoria when she claims Rosarita came to San Miguel many years ago to study art, and that Victoria met her in the very same park. Though Bonita knows nothing about her mother’s travel or interest in art, she later remembers a pastel sketch of a woman on a park bench that could have been from San Miguel and considers how her mother might have sacrificed her art to raise a family. Driven to know more, Bonita finds herself running into Victoria again and again (“Could she, like a wizard or a magician, bring your mother to life again even if it is a life you never knew or suspected?” Desai writes). As Bonita follows in Rosarita’s footsteps to Colima and La Manzanilla, intriguing questions are raised, but Desai merely skims the surface of her protagonist’s emotions. This will leave readers wanting more. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary. (Jan.)