Baby Doll - Gracy

Author: Gracy

Translator: Fathima EV

Genre: Short Story Anthology

Rating: 2.5 stars.

There are some good stories in this collection but most of them weren’t the kind I enjoy.

Gracyude Kathakal, who writes as “Gracy”, is supposedly "one of the finest practitioners of the short story in modern Malayalam literature." So it is with a bit of shamefacedness that I admit I had never heard of her. Like many Indian regional writers, she seems to have been restricted to readers of the language she writes in. If I am not wrong, this is the first English translation of her works. Needless to say, I had high hopes, but her writing style and my reading preference were unfortunately on parallel tracks for most of this journey.

The 36 stories in this collection range in length from micro-fiction to novelette. The tales come primarily from female protagonists, and are mostly dark. The content is quite provocative, feminist and sexual – none of which are adjectives I would associate with Indian regional fiction and hence came as a pleasant surprise. Many tales have implicit references to Christian or Hindu mythology, but in a very irreverent sort of way.

There is a sarcastic kind of humour in a few of the stories, and a touch of magical realism in a few others. These are the ones I enjoyed the best. A few stories were quite metaphorical, and many end abruptly. These are the ones I didn’t like as much.

The stories were written over a period of three decades and have been arranged chronologically. You can see the development of the writer over the long time period. The stories at the end are much better composed than the initial ones. At the same time, I wish there were a reference to the year in which these stories were written, maybe right next to the title. That would have helped to connect their context with the specific year of their writing.

The translation seemed to capture the writer’s intent well, though of course, I can’t comment on its merit without knowing the original work.

Of the 36 stories, only 6 reached 4 stars or more for me. 10 stories came in the 3-3.5 star range. The rest were scattered across 1-2.5 stars. Thus this was a greatly mixed experience, mainly due to my personal disconnect with the writing style. My favourites were the title story, “Outdoor Sights”, and “Coming Home.”

2.5 stars, based on the average of my ratings for all the stories.

My thanks to HarperCollins Publishers India and NetGalley for the DRC of “Baby Doll: Stories”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.