Rating: 
Summary: Sorry NO Beer, But There is definitely a PARTY!!
Review: Sister India is a novel that deserves more than the usual, "Amazing...simply marvelous...an absolute inspiring story," type of review. Anything less than a full page review would not even come close to scratching the surface of this well written novel. Peggy Payne writes with so much description and emotion that a reader will feel the "heat" that this novel contains.
The novel begins with Mother Natraja (Estelle), who is the keeper of a guest house in one of the holiest cities in India. She is one of the main characters in the novel, and is also the main narrator. Natraja is an obese woman who is constantly eating and rarely bathes. Although she is content with her weight, she was not always the three hundred plus pound woman that is described in the novel. She becomes obese due to the hardships she has faced during two disasterous love affairs with men of a different decent. The differences in culture connect India and America in more ways than one for Mother Natraja, but I will let you figure out what I mean.
The other main characters are connected in why they are at this guest house in Inida. T.J. Clayton, who has come to India from Florida to try and save some of its polluted rivers, is struggling with his marriage. Jill, a young woman in her thirties, has come to India in search of some sexual fulfillment and is trying to end a artificial relationship with a man back in th United States. Then there is Marie, who is a woman in her mid-seventies and has come to India because of the death of her husband. She has made a list of some things she wants to do before she dies, and one of them is to swim in the Ganges River, which lies down the road from the guest house. This river is important to the city of Banaras because it is where many Hindus come to die and bathe in the Shiva's divinity. It is a river where many people come in hopes of dissolving their sins, and starting a new beginning.
Now I know what you must be saying to yourself, "Will this guy just expalin to me why I should read this book." This book should be read for a number of reasons, and here is why.
In this novel, Peggy Payne has taken a few characters to show a realistic point, which is it is impossible to hide from life and life's problems. All of these characters search from an escape from the reality of their lives and hope to seek revelation with their journey to India. Natraja left America because of the racial violence that took place in her hometown after people found out about her African-American boyfriend. T.J. is a husband and father of two, who is struggling with his marriage to his wife Jane. Jill is a young woman in her sexual prime who is trying desperately to end a relationship with a man back home. Marie is a woman trying to pick up the pieces of her broken heart by trying to fill the void of her deceased husband by going on a trip. All of these charcters in this novel have come to a crossroad in their lives. They are at a guest house where there is a river that is supposed to cleanse them from their sins. These characters come to this river in hopes of "purifying" their spirits, and also hope to find their faith in life. Water is usually used as a symbol of cleansing, but in this novel, the sacred river is polluted and has many of its faithful weary of swimming in it. The problem is that these characters are hoping this river can help them create a new life for them to lead, which would lead to their salvation. Water can purify the body, but it takes the inner person to cleanse the spirit. These characters search for salvation ends with...oops, I better not spoil it.
This novel portrays a harsh reality to life, but allows the readers to relate with the struggles that the characters face in the story. Payne sends the reader on a journey of faith and and has the reader "partying" by the novel's end. The novel is definitely more than "a poetic evocation of contemporary India," whatever that may mean.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book
Review: Some of these reviews perplex me. I too came to this book expecting that the best Peggy Payne (a non-Indian name if there ever was one!) could do was part the curtains on the Delhi-Varanasi sleeper and give us a tourist's glimpse of the mysterious landscape outside. To be sure, she does not look at India as would a native such as Amitav Ghosh or Manil Suri (please read his "Death of Vishnu"). But, to my mind, she does something better and perhaps more difficult. She looks at the complicated and fascinating life of Varanasi through the eyes of Natraja, an American woman who has lived there for 20 years. It is India as filtered through a fascinating and absorbing character whose self-imposed isolation makes especially acute her perceptions of what's going on around her. I highly recommend this book if you love India or want to visit this complicated land.
Rating: 
Summary: sister india
Review: This novel provides an extraordinary journey, geographical and spiritual. In the company of unforgettable American as well as Indian characters, Payne takes us into the vibrant, unsettling, seethingly violent atmosphere of India. I've never literally visited there, but by the end of her book I felt I had. More than that, I took away with me the lives of her extraordinary characters, each searching for answers to their lives. This is a book you won't forget.Open any page and you'll see why.
Rating:
Summary: Most timely
Review: This novel's tale of Hindu-Muslim violence on the banks of the Ganges is unfortunately all too real. If you are interested in India read this book for its evocation of India, its culture and customs, and an understanding of its current problems, rather than for character development or plot. The tale begins with a murder that occurs when violence erupts between Hindu and Muslim over what was probably a chance encounter--a bumping, a curse in the market, some casual rudeness. As a result several tourists are marooned due to a city-wide curfew in the guesthouse of Madame Natranja, an American who has lived in India for many years. Using a classic literary device, these strangers come to know each other and confront the demons within themselves. I found this device a bit clumsy at times, as the author hints at story lines but doesn't develop them---for example, we never really understand what's going on in TJ's marriage, and Jill's mental problems (obsessive-compulsive disorder most likely) seem totally at odds with her daring sojourns in what is a chaotic and dirty city by any standards. The ending is also a bit contrived--the plot touches on many complex issues which would take a long time to unravel, and Payne tries to neatly tie them up in a redemptive conclusion that really resolves very little. The beauty of this book, however, lies in the picture it paints of the holy city Varanasi. The thought of burning bodies in the open with remains being swept away by the river, and the ritual bathing that occurs in that same river every day at dawn, is one that repels at first, but Payne's descriptions of the prayers, the chanting, the light, the deeply held beliefs, begins to make this slice of India comprehesible to an American. Payne also vividly describes the city itself--the press of human bodies, the claustrophobic alleys, the traffic, the dirt--in most realistic terms. I gather the author is a travel writer and it shows--the creation of a time and place is very well done.
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