“Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows” by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows is not my usual genre, but one of my reading goals this year was to diversify my reading by reading at least ten fiction books that were not science fiction or fantasy When I saw it on the LibraryThing Early Reviewers list, I requested it because I’m interested in the Indian diaspora and I figured it would help get closer to my non-genre fiction goal (I’m doing terribly, including this one, I’ve read two so far this year).
Contrary to the title, this book is not erotica (although it does contain some). Nikki, a young British woman from a Punjabi family, works part-time as a bartender (to the consternation of her family) while she figures out what she wants to do with her life. To earn some extra money, she signs up to teach creative writing at the local Sikh community center. Due to a miscommunication, her students (mostly widows who are not expected have a social life) show up expecting to learn basic English skills. The class seems like it is heading into disaster but when Nikki’s students accidentally find a book of erotica that she bought as a joke, the ice is broken and the class transforms into a space where her students feel comfortable expressing ideas normally deemed taboo.
I didn’t know anything about the Sikh community of Southall, and the author does a good job of setting the atmosphere and making it feel like a whole world unto itself that I was interested in learning more about. The book alternates between the point of view of Nikki, who is modern/easy to relate to and Kulwinder (the woman who hired her), who is more traditional. This helps readers understand Nikki’s students better as well since we have an outside perspective about the same events that Nikki is reacting to.
I didn’t find Nikki to be a compelling protagonist, I couldn’t get a sense of who she was as a person. She doesn’t have a lot of agency, most of the book is just her reacting to events happening around her. Even the evolution of her class is pretty much entirely driven by her students, I didn’t see what she contributed to it. I’m also not a big fan of romantic subplots unless they’re done very well, and the one in this book was fairly generic, and it had a bunch of drama around my least favorite trope – people refusing to talk to other people. Actually, the rest of the drama around Nikki’s students wasn’t very interesting, either, mainly because the characters didn’t draw me in enough to care what their secrets were. However, Kulwinder’s story and growth arc brought the book up a notch, it’s a little melodramatic but she’s a more unique character and that helps.
The book is interspersed with examples of erotica produced by Nikki’s class, which also helps liven the book up a bit and provides some humor. Overall, I thought this was a pretty decent book, although I didn’t love it.