customary walk around the neighborhood. At the beginning of the novel, it is obvious that Coomy has long since made her choice as to how she will behave toward others and, unfortunately, Jal has become a passive partner in her self-centered and spiteful conduct since he is too timid to defy his sister.

The moral drama that is at the crux of Family Matters is soon transferred to the small apartment where Nariman’s daughter Roxana Chenoy lives with her husband Yezad and their two sons, Murad and Jehangir. Even in their cramped quarters, living on a very tight budget, the Chenoys take pleasure in each other’s company and generally enjoy life. However, each of them is tested when Coomy and Jal dump Nariman on them, unannounced, his leg in a cast. Supposedly he is to stay only until his broken ankle has mended and he can walk again; however, while he is at Roxana’s, Coomy deliberately damages the ceiling of her stepfather’s bedroom so that, pretending that there are structural defects in the house, she can keep him away permanently.

In actuality, Roxana and Yezad are far less able to care for Nariman than Coomy and Jal were. The two Contractors had no outside commitments whatsoever. By contrast, the Chenoys are working every moment, Yezad at his job as a sporting goods salesman and Roxana at her household tasks, which are even more time-consuming because she must function without outside help and with barely enough money to cover the family’s expenses. Even Murad and Jehangir have little spare time, for when they are not at school, their parents make sure that they are keeping up with their homework.

It is hardly surprising that the arrival of Nariman, bedridden and helpless, sends Roxana into near panic, although, kind- hearted as she is, she would not say a word to her father about her feelings. However, as the days go by, it becomes increasingly clear to her that his presence threatens not only their happiness but even their very survival. Initially, Roxana has to solve the problem of sleeping arrangements, since there is no second bedroom in the apartment. Therefore Roxana decides to put Nariman on the settee where Jehangir ordinarily sleeps and have the two boys alternate between a cot beside their grandfather and a mattress under an improvised tent on the balcony. However, Nariman’s most intimate needs are not so easily managed. Presumably because of his Parsi feelings about cleanliness, Yezad forbids the boys to help their mother with the physical care of her father, leaving Roxana to answer his frequent calls for a urinal and to lift him onto and off of the bedpan. Soon she is both emotionally and physically exhausted, but although she cries in private and sometimes snaps at her husband, she is determined never to let her father feel unwelcome or unloved.

Yezad is not so noble. While he has always enjoyed being around his father-in-law, Yezad can hide neither his annoyance about his daily schedule being disrupted nor his jealousy at being displaced as the most important figure in his wife’s life. Since he cannot vent his anger on Coomy and Jal, whom he regards as the real culprits, Yezad finds fault with his sons and lashes out at Roxana, who sometimes argues with him and at other times just weeps.

Murad and Jehangir are much more flexible than their father. They have no problem with the sleeping arrangements. They treat camping out on the balcony as a great adventure, and Jehangir, in particular, likes holding his grandfather’s hand when it is his turn to sleep beside him. He does not mind the loss of his mother’s attention because now his grandfather is always handy to tell him stories or to play games with him. To Jehangir, taking care of his grandfather is a privilege. At one point, when she sees how tenderly Jehangir spoons food into his grandfather, Roxana cannot help thinking that some good has come out of the situation, after all.

However, the truth is that caring for Nariman has brought their family to the brink of financial disaster. The pittance that Coomy turns over to Roxana, insisting that it is the whole of his pension, is insufficient to meet the cost of his medicines, let alone his meals. As a result, Roxana has to cut back on food, and the time will come, she fears, when she cannot even pay her other bills. Seeing his mother so troubled about money, Jehangir begins taking bribes from some of the classmates, whose work he grades, and sneaks his ill-gotten gains into the envelopes from which Roxana pays her bills. When his teacher tells Jehangir’s parents about his dishonesty, Roxana is devastated and Yezad, who had always been so proud of his sons, has yet one more reason to hate Roxana’s heartless relatives.

Financial pressures also force Yezad into actions he would never before have considered. First he tries gambling, and though at first he has some success, in the end he loses everything. Yezad’s only hope now is to obtain a promotion at work. His employer, Vikram Kapur, has talked about becoming involved in politics and leaving Yezad in charge of the store. Since Kaput is a good-hearted idealist who sees Bombay as a city where people of all backgrounds and all faiths can live together in peace, Yezad reasons that a threat from the Shiv Sena, hoodlums who view themselves as enforcers of strict Hindu doctrine, would certainly send Kaput into public life. However, the plan backfires. When Kaput defies the Shiv Sena, they murder him, leaving Yezad both jobless and consumed by guilt.

This subplot parallels the main action in that it, too, shows characters choosing between good and evil. Despite the fact that he was driven out of his native Punjab by fanatical Muslims, Kaput has taken in Husain, a Muslim who saw his family torched by Hindu extremists. In the sporting goods store, not only do a Punjabi, a Muslim, and a Parsi work together in harmony, but Kaput has his window displays celebrate the festivals of all the peoples of Bombay. Sadly, Kaput’s utopian dream is defeated. The forces of intolerance win.

However, some good comes from all this evil. First, a repentant Yezad starts helping Roxana with the care of her father; then, after Coomy is killed as a result of her experiments with the ceiling, Jal persuades Yezad and Roxana to sell their house and move in with him. Mistry seems about to present his readers with a most uncharacteristic happy ending. However, he is too much of a realist to let it go at that. In the epilogue, Nariman is dead, and although Jal seems to be finding true love, Yezad has become so fanatical about his faith that he has broken off with his best friend and is in the process of alienating the members of his own family.

Rohinton Mistry has hinted that, at some point, he may set a work of fiction in Canada, where he now lives, rather in Bombay. The change would be no more than a superficial one, for although Mistry is painstakingly accurate about particulars, his primary concern is with universals. As a realist, he knows that, more often than not, good is defeated by evil. However, he is just idealistic enough to believe that it does not have to be so. Mistry’s gentle humor, his compassion, his passion for tolerance, and, above all, the strength with which both he and his characters cling to hope for the future combine to make Family Matters his finest work to date.

Sources for Further Study

The Atlantic Monthly 290 (September, 2002): 165.

Booklist 98 (July, 2002): 1797.

Kirkus Reviews 70 (July 1, 2002): 910.

The New York Times, September 24, 2002, p. E7.

The New York Times Book Review 107 (October 13, 2002): 7.

The New Yorker 78 (September 30, 2002): 140.

Publishers Weekly 249 (July 15, 2002): 51.

The Spectator 288 (March 30, 2002): 41.

Time International 159 (June 10, 2002): 59.

The Times Literary Supplement, April 19, 2002, p. 21.