I think I found Gay Courter’s Flowers in the Blood on Kveller’s list of historical fiction, as part of my search for more Jewish fiction that’s not about the Holocaust. (Yes, of course, that part of our history is important, but that’s not what I want to read about in these endless months of covid semi-quar.)

And Flowers in the Blood hits almost everything I like in fiction. It’s a historical family saga, set in the Jewish community in India. Dinah Sassoon is the privileged daughter of prosperous opium traders, but this is offset by the family secrets and tragedies.

The novel almost feels like an expat story, although the Sassoon families and other Jewish families had been in Calcutta for generations, their insular life felt a bit like my time in expat enclaves. There’s an expat-ish feeling as they have kosher foods prepared and set up Jewish education in another country, and of course, everyone in the community knows everyone else.

I’ve read and enjoyed other fiction about sub-cultures in India, for example Murder in Old Bombay and The Widows of Malabar Hill, and there’s a fascinating look at the Indian Jewish communities in Flowers In The Blood. Most of the story is about Dinah’s family, one of the affluent Jewish families of Calcutta, but there’s also a poorer Jewish community living and working in Cochin. Dinah’s second stepmother (#familysaga) is a Bene Israel, who are either descendants of a shipwrecked Jewish community or a bunch of wannabe-Jews, depending on who you ask. Her first mother-in-law (again, #familysaga!) is a Nepalese woman who converted to marry a Jewish man.

The book had a few sections about technical aspects of the opium trade that I found dull, so I skimmed the descriptions of harvesting, prepping, or auctioning. It was mostly interesting  to see Dinah’s discomfort around supporting opium addictions, mixed with awareness that poppies bring her family’s wealth, comfort and stability…  and a total nonchalance towards the exploited workers. The opium trade reveals relationships between countries and cultures involved in opium, from field workers processing poppies, to British officials taking a cut, to doctors prescribing opium as pain relief.

When I was looking for cover art for my post, I found this harsh Publishers Weekly summary with a super dismissive conclusion: “Its literary shortcomings aside, the book has plenty of commercial potential, and may prove attractive to those who like elaborate romance in exotic settings.” Uh… you caught me out, PW, I do like books about relationships, feelings, and interesting places, guess I’m unliterary or whatevs.