Reviews

Foreword Magazine

Library Journal

The San Francisco Chronicle

– Olivia Boler, in Foreword Magazine, 2004/05/01

This debut short story collection brings to life a sometimes fantastical group of characters whose experiences, countries, ethnicities, genders, and time frames widely range. From a Garwali-British orphan to a woman possessed by a spirit to a fashion-conscious schoolteacher to a half-Chinese man in need of a haircut to a Spanish survivor or war, these stories have one common thread--the state of being caught between two worlds, which isn't always as unsettling as it sounds.

In "Five Objects in Queens," a mixed-race family--the husband is Indian, the wife Irish--live their lives joyfully despite the wife's recurring cancer. The two daughters remain close to their parents even after starting families of their own. The five sections of the story represent still-lifes--moments in time that stand out, even after their mother has succumbed.

"The Excrement Man," which won the Italo Calvino Prize in 1999, is the surrealistic tale of Bundar, born with one blue eye, one brown eye, and a shock of white hair. Throughout his life he collects jars of his excretions, laveling them according to particular events. Despite his undying love for Mez, a childhood friend, he stops short of taking action with her. Neither gets what he or she wants, and they grow old, paralyzed by their dysfunction, Bundar collecting his jars, and Mez doling out advice to neighbors.

The author, who has published in "Prairie Schooner" and "American Literary Reveiw," among others, is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland. She also teaches writing at Spalding University.

In "Twang (Release)," Vaswani's narrator confronts her willfulness with every step she takes. She grows up in a birch forest hunting game, using live foxes as pillows, and communicating with the trees. One day, like a fairy tale heroine, she leaves the protection of all that she knows and ventures into the world, meeting a man who shows her, for the first time in her circumscribed life, the ocean. In the end, she returns to the forest that recognizes her, even though she loves the man. The willful heroine learns to let go.

Magic Realism? Perhaps. Vaswani's tales read a bit like Aimee Bender's, bizarre yet grounded in this world. Even though the narrative voices in these stories are a little too similar--one story's teller sounds much like another's--the stories' strength lies in the author's gift for compelling, unusual yarns and excellent, zinging hooks. Here are a few opening sentences from the collection: "They used the backseat for misdemeanors." "Ms. Durber will not buy sensible shoes." "My name is Gussa, and last Thursday I came to live inside this woman." Without a doubt, readers will see more of this writer's gifted work in the near future.




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– Shirley N. Quan, Orange County Public Library, in Library Journal, 2003/12/13

This collection of 13 short stories – half of which have been previously published in various literary journals – often features characters of Indian origin who may be a reflection of Vaswani’s own blended Indian and Irish heritage. A teacher in the graduate writing program at Spalding University, she excels in the title piece, which concerns a young woman of Indian and British origin in search of her identity; in "Procession at the Tomb of Sayyed Pir Hazrat Baba Bahadur Saheed Rah Aleh," which takes a fascinating look at individuals possessed by spirits; and in "Sita and Mrs. Durber," which focuses on the relationship between a kindergarten teacher and her young student, a gifted artist. However, Vaswani’s writing is as diverse as she is, with pieces such as "Bing-Chen" depicting a man of Chinese and German American origin and "Blue, Without Sorrow," devoted to characters with Mexican origins. Since much of Vaswani’s writing is experimental and as short fiction mostly open ended, this collection is likely to be appreciated by more literate rather that general readers. Recommended for academic libraries and those public libraries with specialized collections in literature, as well as developing collections with works by authors of Indian origin.

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– Reyhan Harmanci, in The San Francisco Chronicle, 2004/01/11

Scavengers, those who feast on the remnants of what others have killed, don't get the kind of good press that the hunters have long enjoyed. They have been seen as petty thieves, the vultures to the eagles, the hyenas to the lions; sloppy seconds just ain't stylish.


However, Neela Vaswani's first collection of short stories, Where the Long Grass Bends, rehabilitates that image, foraging through all kinds of cultural carcasses to form a cohesive whole. In describing the notorious Scheherazade in the story "Bolero," Vaswani could be describing her own approach to writing: "She collects stories (strums them) from people. ... Like every storyteller, she is a scavenger; her eyelashes, her commas; her lips, parenthetical."


Her short stories move through time and space, swooping down to pick up the mythical and the banal bits of Indian, Indian American, Chinese American and other hyphenated identities to form a pattern of basic humanity. In her most successful stories, such as "Possession at the Tomb of Sayyed Pir Hazrat Baba Bahadur Saheed Rah Aleh," when she moves between the tangible and ethereal realms, taking on the voices of the spirits who inhabit people while focusing on the actions of a young boy whose mother is in its thrall, Vaswani is a confident writer, whose unflinching eye shows the reader the beauty grounded in the mundane.


Her characters see the world through their material possessions. The immigrant family in "Five Objects in Queens" tells its story through a chronological listing of objects, avoiding triteness at every turn, for a genuinely touching ending. In "The Pelvis Series," an anthropologist's
gift to her favorite primate pupil, Lola, shows how human Lola has become.
However, when Vaswani's focus becomes too tight, her emphasis on the items can constrict the reader, like the claustrophobic "Domestication of an Imaginary Goat." As a husband and wife's relationship is told through a fight about the meaning behind a never-made goat-shaped stuffed animal, the story grows cumbersome under the weight of a rare burst of exposition. Fortunately, those moments occur rarely throughout the work.

Vaswani improvises from the random stuff surrounding us, taking only what she needs. Her spare phrasing evokes rather than expounds. In "An Outline of No Direction," a story made of fragments from a road trip, she writes: "In a wheelbarrow, I bring sticks and pile them on your western and eastern shores ... I bring these sticks, these immigrants, these emulsifiers. Let them in, I holler, and pile them up until they are tall and unsteady as a bonfire." In this way, Vaswani explains, America is made.

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