Reading Circle 62: ‚Love Marriage‘ by Monica Ali

Love Marriage by Monica Ali

Today’s book was published in 2022, and it’s by the writer of that famous novel ‚Brick Lane‘ (published 2003) – Monica Ali.

After a ten-year hiatus, during which Ali suffered a ‘loss of confidence’ (according to an interview in The Guardian), she has returned with her fifth novel Love Marriage. Love Marriage was described in The Times’ culture section as a ‘literary love story’.  The book is set in London in 2016-2017. It tells the story of Yasmin Ghorami, a 26-year-old junior doctor, who is engaged to be married to a fellow doctor, Joe Sangster. Critical responses were overwhelmingly positive, propelling the novel into The Sunday Times‘ bestseller list in its first week of publication.  On her website Monica Ali announced that the television rights to ‚Love Marriage‘ had been sold to New Pictures after a heated auction, and that it is currently in development with the BBC.

The introduction on the back cover of the novel reads:
‘Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine and a charming, handsome fiancé, fellow doctor Joe Sangster. But now the moment she has been dreading has arrived: it is time for her family to meet Joe’s firebrand feminist mother, Harriet.  As the two families are drawn together, long-held secrets, lies and betrayals unravel on both sides – and Yasmin is forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a ‘love marriage’ actually means…..’

Music played
Your Cheatin’ Heart, sung by Don McLean
Family, sung by Dolly Parton

This month’s book recommendations from Reading Circle members.
• Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie: two sons of doctors sent to the country to labour in the fields during the Cultural Revolution in China discover a case full of classic Western novels. Reading them opens not only their eyes, but also those of the little Chinese seamstress they have got to know.
• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry: An old woman in an Irish mental hospital looks back on her long life, while her psychiatrist tries to establish exactly why she ended up there. A moving story, told with sadness and grace, against the turbulent background of Irish history.
• Dear Life by Alice Munro: Stories about the lives of women, the ways in which they live and think, and how they challenge the expectations of family, friends and
society.
• The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish: a sophisticated work of historical fiction telling the story of two remarkable women separated by three centuries, the ambition that connects them, and the power of the written word.