Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

The first paragraph of this book is both beautifully written and sets the reader up for what is to follow--a book about the all time problematic mother-daughter relationship. This one has plenty of twists, it is not like anything that you have read before. In fact it is a grandmother-mother-daughter-granddaughter tale, and the daughter is struggling with both her off spring and her mother. Her father isn't what you would call problem free either. The narrator is an Indian artist named Antara, whose mother is presenting symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The doctors offer only a dose of vague hope; there is no concrete diagnosis and certainly no cure. Hovering in the dusk of competency, Antara’s mother still manages to live alone, but increasingly she wanders, forgets where she is and what she’s doing. As her only child, Antara embraces the responsibility of caring for her with a determination threaded with resentment and even bouts of suspicion. There is a lot of graphic descriptions not of sex but other bodily functions. Well written.