"The first novel of a well known and well traveled author turns "home to India" for a story of young woman's choice of a way of life. The daughter of a brilliant lawyer whose crusading has helped the Congress Party and the cause of freedom but whose political usefulness has passed, Baba lives in Bombay, was educated in England, but thinks of her grandmother's country house in Jalnabad as home. It is at the New Year's party in 1947 that Baba meets the young American couple, the Nichols, and is drawn by their open love for one another and enthusiasm for exotic India. Her friend Pria, clannish and withdrawn from the Americans, tells her that they have no place in the Indian way of life -- and as the Americans retreat, bewildered by their encounter with Indians and attempts to be friends, Baba sees the truth the Pris's remark. Still, imbued with the idea of romantic love they embody, she will not marry Hari, the eligible companion and suitor, until she has had a sour taste of infatuation for a young school teacher while visiting her mother and grandmother in Malabar -- her little adventure that provides her answer. Written with the attention to detail and authenticity of her non-fiction and with central interest focussed on a strenuous cultural exercise, this has another atmosphere from the more lyric and dramatic Some Inner Fury by Kamala Markandaya or from the more openly satirical A by R. Prawer Jhabvala."--Kirkus