THE WEIGHT OF HEAVEN

Sorrow turns to obsession when Ellie and Frank Benton move from Ann Arbor, Mich., to India shortly after the death of their seven-year-old son.

Frank’s employer, HerbalSolutions, harvests and manufactures a diabetes remedy in the village of Girbaug, and Frank, at Ellie’s urging, is to run the plant. They are escaping from the empty bedroom their son once occupied, from the empty weekends they fill with long aimless drives, from the thousand memories they have of their happy boy, killed quickly by meningococcal fever. In India, Ellie and Frank find a reprieve from their heartache, but escape is hardly a cure. After a year and a half, Ellie loves India, has found a best friend in former journalist Nandita and a sense of purpose in working to improve the lives of the villagers. For Frank, though, India offers no simple salve. As the symbol of corporate America using up its natural resources, he deals with labor disputes, bribery and even the death of a union activist who was trying to improve conditions at HerbalSolutions. The only bright spot for Frank is Ramesh, young son of the Bentons’ maid and cook. As Frank becomes increasingly attached to the boy, his father Prakash becomes jealous, irritated by the rich Westerner who can lure his son with expensive gifts, free time and promises of an American education. It is obvious to Ellie that Ramesh is a replacement for their dead son, but what she can’t fathom is Frank’s vitriolic attitude toward Prakash, and increasingly, all India. Umrigar’s portrait of Frank’s descent into obsessive madness is well paced, as are her descriptions of the couple’s loneliness together, but the novel stumbles with two long flashbacks—one describing Frank and Ellie’s courtship and the other Benny’s death—that add little. By the end, Frank’s preoccupation turns to wickedness and violence.

Not as unified as Umrigar’s previous novels (If Today Be Sweet, 2007, etc.), but an unflinching portrait of parental bereavement.