SKIN by Margaret Mascarenhas

 

 

This debut novel is an engrossing tale of stories within stories, myths, dreams, legends, skeletons in closets. It is fundamentally the story of green-eyed Pagan, an Indian-born pre-adolescent in an American school, who has developed like an onion, layer upon layer of defensive skin. One evening, at a bar, when she dinds herself holding a gun to a mans head, she decides to flee America and journey to Goa, to visit her dying grandmother. Here, she seeks to unravel the skins she has cocooned herself in. She revives old relationships, and soon she is drawn into a tangled web of stories spanning several generations and continents. The plots include the history of Portuguese settlements in Goa, Protestant concepts of hell and the magical traditions of the African godess. The story is complicated by the different and differing versions of the family history by her aunt and other survivors. Penguin  Rs 250