Set in Singapore between the early 1970's and 1990's, Inheritance follows the fissures that develop after the disappearance of teenage Amrit. Although her absence is brief, Amrit returns as a different person. As traditional Punjabis, the family struggles to cope with who Amrit is - her manic highs and lows, and her attempts to find solutions to a problem she doesn't fully understand. Narain, Amrit's brother and closest ally, also leads a secret life in order to avoid trouble with the government. But, although he knows his father is not proud, he is not ashamed of who he is. As the family awaits a transformation in Amrit, Singapore's political, social and cultural landscape rapidly changes, and while some in the family feel this as a loss, for some of them the future will be brighter - but it's a questions of whether the changes will arrive in time. With the traditional expectations of their country on the one hand, and their own volition on the other, how will this family avoid imploding? Inheritance is a universal story of family, identity and belonging.
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Balli Kaur Jaswal is an author with Singaporean roots, now living in Australia. This book won the Sydney Morning Herald???s Best Young Australian Novelist Award in 2014. It traces the evolution of a family, originally from India, living in Singapore from the 1970s to the 1990s. Jaswal writes particularly about the Sikh diaspora, their religious and social cultures, and the struggle to adapt to modernity, particularly outside India and the Punjab region.
Inheritance is about two generations of a family, living with Singapore and struggling with reconciling their identities amidst a rapidly changing social and economic environment. Harbeer Singh moves to Singapore with his young wife, Dalveer. While he embraces Singapore???s competitive, rigid social environment, she struggles to adapt. They have three children, and she dies in childbirth, never knowing her youngest. The book is divided into three sections, each with a chapter focusing one of the four remaining members of the family. Each family member faces their own, specific peculiar challenges. While Harbeer assimilates into Singapore???s tight, conformist society, he finds that his children do not, and he is trailed constantly by the ghost of his dead wife. The oldest, Gurdev, is most like him but cannot understand his own three daughters, who have different ideas of success and freedom, nor his wife, who hates how society gossips about the rest of his family. Narain, his second son, is gay: homosexuality is illegal in Singapore and Harbeer cannot comprehend nor comes to terms with this: Narain, in turn, can't fit in and struggles to maintain covert relationships. The youngest, Amrit, has mental health issues, struggles to keep a job, has problems with alcohol, and is not diagnosed until late in adulthood: all anathema to the conservative Sikh diaspora, which is quick to condemn them.
The title, ???Inheritance??? refers not only to the property and money that Harbeer thinks his younger children ought not to inherit, for their many ???sins??? but also to the genetic links: a family history of mental health issues, so visible in his daughter, possibly emerging in his grand-daughter, and in himself. It refers as well, to their culture and upbringing, and how they carry it from country to country, struggling to adapt and evolve. This was a very well-written, but sad book. It did end on a note of hope, and I???ll definitely be reading her other books.
