Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on January 3, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Bandit Queens is not the usual type of book I read and review on this blog: it's not fantasy, science fiction, or even romance, which are my usual genres. But the book was offered to me in an email by the publisher, I was intrigued by the premise: a widow, Geeta, in an Indian village is wrongly suspected of having killed her no-good husband...and is then asked by other women in the community for help offing their own husbands. Thus we wind up with a dark comedy at times, as Geeta has to deal with her own desires to merely have her own freedom, the needs of the other women to deal with abusive controlling husbands, and what she'd need to do to actually become a murderer.
The result is a mixed bag, although one that is mainly positive and very amusing. The story does a great job illustrating the plight of Geeta and other such women in small villages in India and really makes you care about her very quickly, such that all the things that happen to her can be hard to read. It also deals with strong themes dealing with prejudice and circumstances driven by India's misogyny, its caste system, and the conflict between its religious groups. The story does at times feels like it isn't sure what direction the plot should take it - with the story at times feinting towards it having a side romance and those who the story sympathizes with amongst those interacting with Geeta shifting (particularly with the women who Geeta most reluctantly associates with). But it ends on a positive note and its final confrontation is so ridiculous it winds up doubling back to being pretty funny, which makes this a strong debut novel.
Trigger Warning: Spousal Abuse - Physical and Emotional - and there is one scene of attempted rape. No such rape actually occurs - it is attempted but physically stopped - but it could be triggering for some readers as it is a clear attempt at physical rape on page. There is also animal (canine) abuse.
Plot Summary:
Five years ago, Geeta's husband Ramesh disappeared. And Geeta finds she doesn't miss him - while there were moments of love between them, there was also his physical abuse of her, his taking of her money for drink, and her controlling of her role in society. Freedom to be her own woman, using new microloans from outsiders to run a jewelry business, is something she didn't realize she could want. The only problem is that everyone seems to assume (over her protests) that Geeta killed Ramesh herself and the town fears and shuns her for it. But even those assumptions have allowed Geeta greater freedom and given her new ways to help her own business.
But Geeta can't help notice the other women in her local collective of businesswomen - other women who have taken advantage of the microloans to start their own enterprises - are themselves showing physical signs of abuse...or are having their money stolen for drink by their own no-good husbands. And while the group is hardly the most friendly to Geeta, when one of them comes to her begging Geeta for help offing that woman's own husband, Geeta finds herself drawn in despite herself. But when the other women then also come looking for Geeta's help, Geeta finds herself torn in so many ways as she just tries to be good and enjoy her freedom and instead finds herself confronting injustice everywhere around her, such that it can maybe never be solved....
One thing The Bandit Queens does so so so well is get the reader to not just understand Geeta, whose third person perspective carries most of the book, but to seriously care about her. Geeta is a character who the story makes incredibly likable, even as she sometimes is a bit naive and her realizations could in another author's hands feel a bit flat and irritating. Geeta was born to a family with some means, even if not a lot, and while not a particularly religious Hindu is one of a decent caste. So as she discovers throughout this book (more on this later), she has had a lot of privilege in life that allowed her to ignore or at least turn an embarrassed eye to some of the horrors and difficulties others in less fortunate circumstances faced in the Indian culture (whether they be women too poor to have a dowry, of a lower caste such that they are oppressed, Muslim in a country where Muslims are at best tolerated, etc). And yet, when she had her husband, well he made life miserable for her even after she first thought he was kind and caring - he beat her, he used up all their money to drink, and when he ran away he left her overburdened with debts and loans.
But Geeta is a stronger than others think and managed to make the best out of his disappearance - using the newly available microloans to women to found her jewelry business, using her reputation as a possible husband killer to ensure she isn't bothered (and to spur people to buy her jewelry in fear of what she might do otherwise), and just being able to have freedom to do what she wants. She's not overly sociable and in fact has a hard time dealing with the local community of women who are her kinda friends, which leads to a lot of the problems that come about in the story, but she's enjoying her freedom and as it becomes jeopardized, and she realizes how much bad there is out there that she has been taught to ignore, well it's easy to care about her journey....even as that journey constantly gets her in trouble due to the other women trying to get her to help them kill their husbands.
And honestly, that plot point caused me to struggle to read this book - because it led Geeta to constantly be in more and more trouble and for her to be torn between helping these women - who often at best badger her and sometimes emotionally abuse their supposed claims to friendship (and sometimes even go as far as to try and extort Geeta - and not getting involved...even as she sees that the men truly do deserve their comeuppance, whether that be from physical violence, stealing their spouse's money, or trying to force themselves on other women. And like I said, even very quickly I grew to care about Geeta, which made reading her struggles and knowing things would get worse very hard to do. But if you manage to do so, you'll find a plot which can often - especially near the end - verge into some very amusing dark comedy, and deals with some various serious themes as Geeta comes into contact with women and other people with even worse situations than her and her friends - those in lower castes, those who aren't Hindu (one of the women is Muslim and well, she gives as much as she gets but it's clear her religion makes others less trust and be willing to accept her), and those who are in positions that are more usually reserved just for men. There's one moment in particular where the police station has a bunch of useless and often bribed men and one woman trying desperately to do a good job who is on Geeta's trail and seeing her get waylaid by the men is pretty darkly funny and directly on point as the story shows how the women both need to stick together and need to help others even less fortunate, as the oppressing class of men isn't just awful, they're incompetent compared to the women....who struggle in a small village to make their voices heard.
At the same time, The Bandit Queens kind of has an issue in that the book can't seem to decide what story it wants to be telling at times. For a large part of the book Geeta appears to be embarking on a romantic subplot with widower alcohol seller Karim and at the same time, she appears to be being used and emotionally abused by the other women for the purpose of helping them off their husbands, with them basically casting her aside otherwise. Some of this is explained by Geeta's perspective being unreliable - she was isolated without her realizing it by her husband and thus distrusts any attempt by the other women to reach out - but some of it is them being genuinely manipulative and jerky towards her. And then in the book's final act it basically ditches any romance (although Karim remains a good guy and is never actually rejected) and turns to a book celebrating sisterhood, with a perspective change revealing that the bully friend who seemed most to be manipulating her was really still a good friend all along whose motivations were pure and the rest of the women all coming together for the hilarious eventual triumph. I think it all works in the end obviously and the latter read is fun to end on, but it is a little kneejerk weird how it shifts suddenly in the last act once we see someone else's perspective for a chapter.
Overall though, The Bandit Queens is an excellent novel that is extremely good at making you care about the main character, deals with serious themes present in India and elsewhere today, and can at times be darkly comedic in very funny ways. An excellent debut.
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