Synopsis

Spanning over three generations, Incandescence is a book about a fallen aristocratic family set in 1970, Bangladesh. In a nuanced tale of love and betrayal, the protagonist is on an introspective journey of the self, space, and time. Mila Chowdhury, growing up in this somewhat odd and dysfunctional family, discovers life’s intrinsic value. That there is a huge gap between what is and what should be. How does one overcome such limitations and shortcomings? Paradoxically, the answer lay right here, within her own odd family.

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Excerpt

Long into the night, Prema had a dream. She dreamt of Waheed Murad. In strange classical Urdu, Waheed spoke to her—a reality juxtaposed against a surreal, ancient land of the dead. He came up to her. They looked at each other. He kissed her on the lips. Waheed’s handsome face was lost in the masses of her dark hair. He bent down and locked his lips onto hers until the lips moistened and looked glossy and dark. She pulled away from him. Each pair of lips was deadly dark, showing saliva of shining juices. Then, Waheed was gone. Just like that! A glass-screen fell between them. She saw him through it. Waheed danced in the luminous rainbow colors amongst the dead. He was cajoling her to give him her body—her vessel if she fancied him so much. Prema felt trepidation in the dream. That the dead actor wished to return to her body. She saw greed in those beautiful eyes of his—give it up for him. How astonishing that she should dream of him like that? Her favorite, she wished him well. She wished he lived forever but in own vessel.

The stuff of life; life rejuvenated, and reincarnated. Even the dead had life. Like love and other abstract elements, life lived on in some form or the other. A blade of grass or a sprightly butterfly, a complex morphological process took place before it changed into something new: the caterpillar into a butterfly—Waheed Murad, what did he transform into? She woke up in the darkness. She saw a face adrift through space. She opened her eyes and tried to see it for real. A bearded face of a stranger moved quickly across the space of the dim room, with his eyes cast downwards as it vanished completely. Oh! What was that? Her baby slept as peacefully as did her husband. Only, she saw, what she saw in wakefulness as well as in her dream—something ethereal…

Review

This novel looks at a multigenerational family, their expectations, and the reality of life.

The story starts with poetic descriptions of Mila and her love for Rahim. We watch her struggle with loving him but not being able to have him in her life due to his imposed relationship with Papri. This is a time of arranged marriages and family expectations that transcend love.

The story is set in Bangladesh, a part of the world I only know a little about, so I was engrossed in the family dynamics, politics of these towns, and the acceptance of situations that others might find immoral. I appreciated that not everyone in this one family agreed with the Matriarch’s decision to disown one of her children, supported him and his wife, and helped them along in life.

Times were not easy for anyone in this family, and they had to battle strife in their village and impending doom from the political side of their life.

It did take some time to get into the groove of the story, but once I did, it flowed seamlessly, and I enjoyed delving into the lives of these characters and the dilemmas that they faced.

We give this book 4 paws up.

About the Author

Multiple contests winner for short fiction, Mehreen Ahmed is an award-winning Australian novelist born in Bangladesh. Her historical fiction, The Pacifist, is an audible bestseller. Included in The Best Asian Speculative Fiction Anthology, her works have also been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review and DD Magazine, to name a few. She is a featured writer on Flash Fiction North and Connotation Press, a reader for The Welkin Prize, Five Minutes, and a juror for KM Anthru International Prize. Her works have been translated into German, Greek, and Bangla, reprinted, anthologized, and have made it to the top 10 read on Impspired Magazine multiple times.

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