Marriage Material

Set in the English city of Wolverhampton, award-winning journalist Sanghera's first novel (after a memoir, The Boy with the Topknot) weaves an engaging tale describing the lives, marriages, and potential marriages of the Bains family, Asian Indians of the Sikh faith who run a convenience store. The modern-day story line centers on Arjan, grandson of the store's original owner. Upon his father's death, Arjan leaves his job in London and returns to the family business to assist his ailing mother. In alternating chapters, Sanghera discloses details of the family's past, showing how Asian Indians were perceived as minorities and how caste and cultural expectations affected the lives of Arjan's mother and his Aunt Surinder, the black sheep of the family, who eloped with a salesman named Jim O'Connor. Arjan himself is engaged to an Englishwoman, and past and present intersect midway through the novel when he meets Surinder and considers what his life could be like with his fiancée, Freya.