India Gray Book Reviews

India Gray by Sujata Massey Book Summary

Travel to the Indian subcontinent with a boxed set containing 2 suspenseful novellas and 3 stories. The title story, INDIA GRAY, is a poignant adventure set on the 1945 battlefront of Assam, India. It features Kamala and Simon, beloved characters from the historical saga, THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY. Next in line is THE OXFORD INCIDENT, a novelette introducing Miss Perveen Mistry, a law student from Bombay tasked with finding a missing Indian at Oxford University in 1918. THE AYAH’S TALE is a full-length novella featuring Menakshi, a teenage ayah working for an elite British family in 1920s Bengal. ALIPORE CLUB RULES, a short story set in early 1950s Calcutta, features Kabita Lewes, an Anglo-Indian girl struggling with her parents’ intense relationship and her own identity. The collection rounds out with a thriller story, BITTER TEA. In the remote Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, a peaceful Muslim village has been invaded by foreign fundamentalists. As women lose their rights to leave the home, three school friends conspire to change the situation.

Massey’s fiction realistically reflects the “gray” situations in which characters find themselves when living during and after colonialism. The boxed set is approximately 220 regular book pages and will also release as a trade paperback edition on 11/24/2015. 

“The Sleeping Dictionary, an utterly engrossing tale of love, espionage, betrayal and survival, is historical fiction at its best, accessible to all audiences.”—BOOKLIST on THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY (starred review) 

“Evocative descriptions of the late Raj period’s Indian cultures, customs, cuisine, flora and fauna are narrated delightfully. Although this is essentially a story of love and human endurance, Massey, an award-winning author, has admirably woven the events of the Indian independence movement into the plot … this is an informative and entertaining historical novel.”—HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY on THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY. 

“Sujata Massey beautifully depicts the life of an Indian ayah and the complicated relationships that people in the employ of their colonial masters had to deal with. Even though Menakshi endures great hardships in her life, she feels love in these pages and the prospect of a more hopeful future.”—MARIE’S BOOK GARDEN on THE AYAH’S TALE

“Massey deftly plays with several strong threads, each of which gives a certain heft to the story. She explores the relationships between parents and children, Indians and British, upper and lower classes, hope and hopelessness, India and abroad, stories and reality. Read it to find out what speaks to you most.”—SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN on THE AYAH’S TALE

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