There's something inherently brave about starting over, as Deepa Varadarajan explores in her charming debut novel, Late Bloomers. That's what Nikesh thinks of his parents, anyway, watching "the two of them trying to cobble together new lives while other Indian people their age were settling into creaky lawn chairs... reconciling themselves to deadened marriages and eventless retirements." But not Suresh and Lata, who have divorced after 36 years of unhappy marriage. Lata gets her first-ever job at a local university's music library and enjoys living alone in her condo. Suresh turns to online dating, eternally optimistic despite the never-ending lies of "[a]ll these internet women." And while Nikesh finds his father's dating adventures somewhat romantic, his sister, Priya, describes her father's behavior as "post-midlife crisis; act your age; ridiculous; embarrassment."
Late Bloomers is a novel that celebrates love--and the quest for it--in all of its many varieties: familial, romantic, parental, dutiful, young, old, passionate, passionless. Through complex characters and the many ways they knock together, Varadarajan offers a novel shaped--but not defined--by the flaws of its characters, a story that peels back their layers as they find their way as individuals and as a family. Late Bloomers, at times laugh-out-loud funny and at times quietly heartbreaking, is an intricate novel about people who rediscover themselves. Or perhaps, by being honest with themselves and with each other, discover themselves for the very first time. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer