With her debut novel, The Book of Unholy Mischief, Elle Newmark took her place among the finest writers of our day. Readers, reviewers were united in their praise for her intelligent, evocative, mesmerizing story. She has gifted us with another such tale, THE SANDALWOOD TREE.
The setting is India, the background for the lives of Evie and Martin Mitchell and their 5-year-old son Billy in 1947 during the Partition. A parallel story relates the experiences of Adela and Felicity who lived some 90 years earlier during the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion. Newmark glides easily between time periods revealing in alternating chapters the dreams, hopes, and fears of the individuals involved as well as the sights, sounds and, yes, even the smells of India.
We meet the Mitchells when Martin is awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to write his Ph.D. thesis in Indian history. This sounds wonderful to Evie, imagining an India from books and film, as well as perhaps providing an opportunity to heal the breach in her marriage. Martin has returned from the war quite unlike the man she married - remote, unable to sleep, uncommunicative.
Evie is set on bringing about change, enjoying India, lavishing attention on Billy, and perhaps teaching the native children. No matter her determination what she finds instead is violence, a land torn asunder by the departure of Britain and the partitioning of the country between Hindus and Muslims. Martin regrets bringing his family to this and wants them to leave, but travel becomes life threatening, so they’re forced to remain.
It is while she is there that Evie comes upon a cache of letters hidden behind a brick in the kitchen wall. They were written in 1857 between Adela and Felicity, “solitary children of cold parents” who “found comfort in sisterhood.” They were quite different yet devoted to one another. The letters Evie found only hinted at a compelling story of love and war.
Evie becomes almost obsessed by what she has found and is determined to find out what happened to the two young English women who lived in this house almost a century earlier. Her search is a fascinating and sometimes frightening journey as she seeks information in bazaars and temples, places forbidden to her by Martin for her safety and Billy’s.
Sometimes somber, often sparkling with beauty THE SANDALWOOD TREE is a splendid blend of history, imagination, and the mysteries of the human heart.
Highly recommended.
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