The Bandit Queens

I highly recommend this debut novel by Parini Shroff, a practicing attorney in the Bay Area. She takes on some serious themes--caste, spousal abuse, gender discrimination--with what some reviewers have called "laugh-out-loud humor;" whereas, I would say with absurd or dark humor. Set in a poor (east) Indian village, Geeta has become a pariah ever since her abusive husband, Ramesh, disappeared 5 years before. Everyone believes she did away with him to become a "self-made widow." She turns her reputation to advantage as it keeps away unwanted advances from men and she has now joined a small group of women with a microloan to run their own businesses. But even the group members believe she is a successful murderer and so Farah comes to her asking for assistance in killing her abusive husband. That request is followed by a similar one from Priety--all of which pushes Geeta in scary directions. She takes inspiration from the legendary Phoolan Devi, known as the Bandit Queen, who took revenge on those who had degraded and hurt her. She makes an unlikely friend, the widowed village supplier of illegal liquor, Karem, but then costs him his biggest customer, a gangster in a neighboring town. Then, low and behold, her "dead" husband, now blind, reappears in town and wants to reunite with her. At occasional risk of life and limb, she solves her loan group's problems, sends her husband packing, and begins her re-integration into the village life.

Publishers Weekly concludes their review: "Shroff deals sharply with misogyny and abuse, describing the misery inflicted as well as its consequences in unflinching detail, and is equally unsparing in her depictions of mean-girl culture in the village. Readers are in for a razor-stuffed treat." Library Journal asserts that "This is a deeply human book, with women surviving and overcoming in their culture while still remaining a part of it." Kirkus opens their review with "Bonds of sisterhood are forged through murders." And, though not uniformly laudatory, goes on to say, "Still, if you can lean into the melodramatic slapstick nature of it all—villainous characters who pause midvillainy to explain that their nicknames are works in progress; characters who pause mid–hostage situation to wish each other a Happy New Year—the novel will reward you with occasional witty one-liners, tender moments of deep female friendship, and salient truths: 'Because we’re middle-aged housewives. Who’s more invisible than us? We can get away with murder. Literally.'” Readers will appreciate—if not quite be riveted by—this tale of the strength of women in impossible situations."

In a lengthy review, The New York Times opens with “'Women were built to endure the rules men make,' Parini Shroff writes in her debut novel, The Bandit Queens, which covers a litany of grim realities in rural India: ... This might sound depressing, but Shroff manages to spin all of the above into a radically feel-good story about the murder of no-good husbands by a cast of unsinkable women."

I'm including Booklist's review in total because it captures several important points. "Shroff's debut is a darkly hilarious take on gossip, caste, truth, village life, and the patriarchy. Geeta's abusive drunk of a husband disappeared five years ago, leaving her alone and destitute in a small village in India, where rumor has it that she did him in. Her reputation as a woman who "removed her own nose ring" protects her from various unpleasant attentions, and it's not long before other women in her microloan group seek her assistance removing their nose rings. Inspired by Phoolan Devi, "the Bandit Queen," who fought for the rights of women in India, Geeta engages the help of a handsome widower (and black-market liquor purveyor) and takes on a gangster from whom she steals a dog. Geeta inadvertently manages to facilitate a couple of husband disposals before her own spouse reappears, hoping to reconcile with her. As one of her beneficiaries tries to blackmail her and her long-estranged, childhood best friend becomes a source of support, Geeta endeavors to take her life back. A perfect match for fans of Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer (2018) and clever, subversive storytelling."

NPR's interview with author Parini Shroff is here.