Title: A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship
Author: Sabarna Roy
Publisher: Leadstart publishing
Genre: Marriage & Relationship, Contemporary Romance
First Publication: 2021
Language: English
Book Summary: A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship by Sabarna Roy
This is a story where Rahul, Paromita, Suroma and Samaresh bisect and intersect boundaries of marriage, affair and friendship, evolving into an intriguing cocktail and mix of human relationship.
Sabarna Roy looks at a marriage, an affair, and a friendship in a very in-teresting, and a fast-paced prose and gravitates to the idea of an open marriage in a modernist setting. It is a highly enjoyable read that strikes at our prejudices and regressive thoughts in a subtle and fleeting manner. A must read.
True to his style, Sabarna experiments within the format of prose writing inside a single piece of novella. A starkly visual human drama!
Book Review: A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship by Sabarna Roy
Every story has two sides. Similarly every relationship has two perspectives. The key to a successful marriage is not always its truths, but sometimes its secrets. At the heart of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Sabarna Roy tells the story of one such relationship. A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship by Sabarna Roy follows the intertwining stories of Rahul, Paromita, Suroma and Samaresh. These characters come from very separate yet equal backgrounds.
Both Rahul and Paromita are successful in their careers and lead a normal life with two children. A sudden proposal from Suroma shakes their world. Apparently, Suroma wants a child with Rahul. Neither is she interested in him as a husband or as a father. All she wants is his child. As a result, Paromita takes it as cheating initially, but after she has given it some serious thought, she accepts it as what it actually is. The couple agreed to expand their marriage boundaries mutually. But their children don’t approve it. An intriguing cocktail of human relationships emerges when Rahul, Paromita, Suroma, and Samaresh cross and intersect boundaries of marriage, affairs, and friendship.
A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship opens by dropping readers right at the doorstep of the central drama, effectively hooking readers and establishing Paromita as a sympathetic character. The situation both Rahul and Paromita find themselves in is so unbelievably unpleasant that it is a wonder that the Paromita we meet in the beginning to able to function at all. The stakes are high for her, and the rawness of her emotional state feels tangible. Her pain is so eloquently expressed that it’s easy to suffer the sting of betrayal, the ravages of heartbreak, and the corrosive burn of jealousy alongside her. She genuinely loves her husband, and her character is made more interesting for her conflicted attitude toward the situation as she balances long-standing adoration and trust against feelings of hurt and affair.
What impressed me the most about this novel is the way Sabarna Roy created characters who are pleasant and flawed and intensely aggravating but still managed to make us feel and root for them. Suroma’s intense wish for a child and everything she goes through to have a child was absolutely heart-breaking. A keen awareness of plot placing is evident throughout the book. The author distributes shocking surprises at perfectly placed intervals to hold the interest of his readers. Each revelation hits hard and keeps the pages turning.
Sabarna Roy weaves a very intricate and immersive tale in A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship. He manages to simultaneously explore individual identity, relationships, family and the experience of cultural and societal expectations of different generations and people. He has very interesting and insightful things to say about culture and human dynamics navigating in an evolving world bridging old and new ways.
