What You Call Winter: Stories

by Nalini Jones

Composed of interconnected stories that move within and around a small Catholic community in India, this debut collection heralds the arrival of a graceful, sparkling new voice.

Nine-year-old Marian Almeida covets the green dress her parents have set aside for her birthday, but when her desire gets the best of her, dangerous events ensue. Roddy D'Souza sees his long-dead father bicycling down the street, and wonders if his own life is nearing its close. Essie, having sent her son to boarding school, weighs his unhappiness against the opportunities his education will provide. With empathy and poise, Nalini Jones creates in What You Call Winter a spellbinding work of families in an uncertain world.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2005

Reviews

[Madeline Pelgrim · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 and rounding up because it’s a first-time author. Each story left me wanting more and discovering the connections between some of the stories was exciting and gave the collection more of a connection that short stories typically have.

[Sanjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one of those debut collections of sensitively-written short stories by a half-Indian-half-American writer. So far, so ho-hum. But what makes Nalini Jones’ book unusual is her material: not the psyche of confused second-generation immigrants, but the human condition of the Catholic community in a suburb of Mumbai (called Santa Clara in the book, but obviously Bandra). It’s a subject rich with possibilities, and Jones does it full justice in these intertwined tales. (The rest of this review is at www.antiblurbs.blogspot.com)

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Nalini Jones' first published book, and wow... what a fantastic job she did. The list of characters is enormous, and you really have to keep a piece of paper next to you to keep track of who the characters are.

A main theme found in this short story cycle is the displaced feeling that results from moving away from your home country, and then feeling like a half-stranger to both your new home and your old home.

I have to go back to working now - more later

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable collection of linked short stories. When I was done, I wanted to turn the book over and begin again. In particular, "Half the Story" left me speechless. The characters and place will stay with me a long time.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Composed of interconnected stories that move within and around a small Catholic community in India, What You Call Winter manages to be both common place and fiercely unique. The portraits are nothing short of breath taking and there were times when I was in awe when I recognized where a story was going.
An auspicious debut.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Nalini Jones manages to illustrate all the shadowy areas of her characters’ lives without making me feel that the world is an unredeemable place. Loved the feeling of just living alongside the families in these stories.

[Connie LaMotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the interconnected stories and the idea of following multiple characters lives through the eyes of several people. That being said, I struggled to get through the first half of the book. The last few stories were definitely my favorite and propelled me through the last 70 pages.

[Kang-Chun Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

so so beautiful. delicate, poignant, and incisive. narrating changes in human emotional journey

[Elevate Difference · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nalini Jones’ debut collection centers on the community of Santa Clara, a suburb of Mumbai, India that was built upon echoes of its Catholic faith. What You Call Winter consists of nine interwoven tales spanning three decades in a town where boundaries between family and community have faded like the once brightly colored walls framing the small houses. A sense of familial history is almost always contrasted with fragility, change, and departures. Upon leaving Santa Clara for the United States, characters such as Colleen, whose lover is “no one she could speak of at home,” seem to lose touch completely and forever sever ties maintained by those who remain - despite fleeting contact through letters, phone calls, and periodic trips to the place once called ‘home’.

Most who remain in Santa Clara relish in waiting for their loved ones to return for a holiday or after graduate school, waiting for “wives following husbands, brothers following sisters, elderly parents persuaded to live in suburbs with grandchildren, shopping malls, washing machines.” Others, like 44-year-old Toby, seem to realize only too late in life that leaving was ever an option. It seems to Toby “that his life turned out the way it had from a failure of imagination…he had not dreamt clearly enough for even those things he desired most to materialize.” Jones captures the seemingly paradoxical nature of the small town - so limited, yet overflowing with daily distraction. An elderly Grace is as devoted to The Bold and the Beautiful as she is to her daily prayers and rosary. Essie Almeida spends every afternoon writing letters to her son away at boarding school and every evening agonizing over how to censor the pain she suffers from the letters she’s received in order to hide it from the rest of the family.

Jones’ characters are often faced with an overwhelming sense of loneliness as they struggle to belong in an ever-changing yet intricately traditional context where what is left unsaid is often the most telling. When Marian returns to India to visit her sick father, she brings her new friend Vee and leaves her family home in Cincinnati. It is the plane ride that awakens her solitude, her invisibility: “Some essential part of her was out of reach, turned away like the far side of the moon no matter how they moved around each other.”

Later in the collection the reader catches a glimpse of an adolescent Marian as she struggles to reacquaint herself with her brother upon his return from boarding school. After learning that her mother had been censoring his pleas to come home in fear of the opportunities he will lose, Marian discovers an encroaching “current of…violence running through her family.” She does not come to realize the magnitude of her brother’s suffering until years later, leaving the reader to trace the tragic genealogy of silence to Marian’s own young daughter. What You Call Winter is a captivating and polished collection that questions the notions of home and belonging in the face of solitude and lost innocence.

Review by Melissa McCarron

[Hedlun · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the perspective of the Indian families in this book, particularly since the represent the Catholic minority in the country. I think it added to my cultural awareness for such families living in the US, as some of the characters do.

Because this is a collection of interwoven stories that is not linear, I found it easier to follow when I started charting the relationships between characters in each story. I could then refer back to my notes as I read the next story.

[Margaret Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

These emotionally alive stories sparkle with intuitive sensibility. They depict a small handful of inter-related,modern minority Catholic Indian families living near Bombay, whose ranks are dwindling because of members,in each case, who have left for the USA but come back for visits. Sharply drawn images of domestic comings and goings and subtly expressed longings of those left behind,fill this beautifully written book.

[Karen Carlson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linked stories of an Indian extended family/community with themes of home and distance. Some stories are terrific; others a little hard to get a handle on. But overall quite nice. Detailed comments on all stories (with possible spoilers) blogged at A Just Recompense.

[Meg Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

JOnes has written about a town in India that was influenced by the Portuguese, and the inhabitants are, therefore, primarily Catholic. The book seems to be a series of short stories, but is actually a novel comprised of multigenrational vignettes.

[Pbwritr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of stories. Set in India but seems very much like the U.S. in many respects. Written by soomeone born and educated in the U.S., so perhaps that's why. Still, wonderful stories about family relationships, some of which are connected although separated by time and distance.

[Andrew Clem. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection had the overwhelming feeling of a dark, dusty room in a corner of post-Colonial Bombay. Jones presents an interconnected series of stories about a Catholic enclave slowly suffering from the ravages of time.

[Tonya · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting but not enough for me to finish it. I loved all the descriptions of food and the relationships in the short stories but it never really grabbed me.

[Susan Bishop]

Just started this collection of short stories - the author is my neighbor which makes the book that much more interesting! So far, so good.

[Bebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

well written stories; all of which seemed to blend together and weren't different enough to be a compelling collection though standing alone would have worked well.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have really begun to enjoy short stories more lately, and this collection is very good. I like the way they are all linked in small ways to one another.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully pointillist and graceful, moving between characters, settings, and eras with ease.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice insights into ordinary lives, well told. She really put you inside the characters' skins.

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jones has created a well-woven net of stories to give a satisfying portrait of a Santa Clara neighborhood through several generations. She nimbly switches from the perspective of children to grandparents, family to family, representing voices not usually heard in a voice respectful and raw. Each shows the trauma or challenge of a life, and each works that into the complex yet fully imagined and portrayed ecosystem of a family, a neighborhood, and a country. A joy to read, to work out the ties, and to discover with each story a different glistening moment.