Rating: 
Summary: One family's battle against fate and circumstance
Review: Mistry has an enviable talent for blending realism and melodrama, consequence and coincidence, isolation and loyalty--all without testing the reader's credulity. He famously proved his worth as a Dickensian writer in "A Fine Balance"; in "Family Matters" he adopts a far more claustrophobic setting to portray a family torn apart and then strengthened by both poverty in a big city and proximity in close quarters.
Nariman Vakeel, an elderly Parsi deteriorating from Parkinson's disease, breaks his ankle, and the injury is the last straw for his two stepchildren, who have tired of caring for him. The pair (quite literarily) unload Nariman on his daughter Roxana and son-in-law Yezad, along with their two sons, all of whom live in a tiny two-room apartment. The addition of Nariman to this impoverished household taxes the newly enlarged family beyond its means, and the strain caused to both their patience and their limited budget forces various members of this previously honorable family to consider schemes and deceptions to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, Nariman's stepchildren plot increasingly outrageous acts of subterfuge to prevent his eventual return to his own home. And we eventually discover the details of the old man's past relationship with a Goan Christian woman, the tragic and scandalous consequences of which his stepchildren--especially his stepdaughter Coomy--continue to hold against him.
As in his past books, Mistry relies in part on coincidence to advance the story, but he is adept at never subsuming the family drama to his plot devices. (He even offers a coy response to those who don't believe in the prevalence of happenstance, when Yezad realizes after one tragedy, "That was the problem, everyone dismissing the possibility of coincidence.") But this book is less about chance and more about the inevitable fate of the victims of a city, like Bombay, that is overwhelmed by corruption and callousness and deprivation.
If this book is guilty of excess, it is in its characterization of Coomy. It's not that her wickedness is implausible--far from it. Rather, Mistry never convincingly presents the motives for the greed and selfishness that cause her to go to the lengths she does to keep Nariman from returning to the apartment she has managed to commandeer from him. More generally, we're never quite sure why she resorts to malice while her brother hesitates in cooperating in her schemes.
But, in the end, "Family Matters" is not about Coomy and her brother but about Roxanna and Yezad and their two sons. The troubles that plague their household are all too believable, and Mistry's novel forcefully and affectionately describes one family's decline, partial redemption, and ultimate defiance against the inhumanity of fate and circumstance.
Rating:
Summary: Masterfully written
Review: Mistry has mastered the art of describing human interactions so that every reader can surely identify with them. The father is a totally sympathetic character who is faced with the selfishness of a step-daughter, the weakness of a step-son and the generosity of a daughter who is challenged by trying to provide for her nuclear family at the same time she ministers to him. This book is unlike "Fine Balance" in that it doesn't directly address political situations that make difficult lives even more so. The reader is left to draw that assumption from such occurences as the attempt to migrate to Canada. Mistry is a highly proficient writer with an undeniable penchant for drawing his readers into the lives, hearts and motivations of his characters. Once again, Mr. Mistry, bravo.
Rating: 
Summary: A flawless gem
Review: Mistry's latest novel, Family Matters, is a flawless gem and is a worthy successor to his equally impressive A Fine Balance. At the heart of Family Matters is the aging Nariman Vakeel who is in rapidly deteroriating health due to Parkinson's. Nariman is haunted by dreams of his ex-girlfriend, Lucy Braganza, a girl his parents forced him to renounce. He is cared for by his children Coomy and Jal. Coomy is a cranky woman with "too much anger" within her to care for her father well. When Nariman slips and hurts himself seriously on a walk, Coomy and Jal transfer custody of their bedridden father to their half-sister, Roxana Chenoy. Roxana's is a happy family with a doting husband, Yezad, and two wonderful sons, Murad and Jehangir. The arrival of Nariman in an already cramped apartment, though, puts enormous financial and emotional burdens on the family. As Nariman puts it, "People have their own lives, it's not helpful when something disturbs those lives." Family Matters portrays the daily play of emotions with remarkable acuity.Mistry paints all of his characters very realistically with real strengths and failings. Roxana cares for her aging father with amazing grace. Yezad, who once dreamt of emigrating to Canada, tries valiantly to keep the cheer. And who wouldn't want to have Murad and Jehangir, two of the most amazing kids, as their own! There are many side players in the story-Daisy, who lives downstairs in Pleasant Villa, and who regales Nariman quite often with her violin. Also portrayed well is Mr. Vikram Kapur, Yezad's boss at Bombay Sporting Goods Emporium. Mistry's love for his old city, Bombay, shines through loud and clear in the words of Mr. Kapur: "Bombay endures because it gives and it receives. Within this warp and weft is woven the special texture of its social fabric, the spirit of tolerance, acceptance, generosity. Anywhere else in the world, in those so-called civilized places like England and America, such terrible conditions would lead to revolution." These words of high praise for Bombay, however, come with a warning against the radical political party, Shiv Sena, trying to gain control of the dynamic city. As with Fine Balance, Mistry uses his platform to make a couple of political statements-a frequent rant against the Shiv Sena and another subtle one against the pro-lifers in America, the "empty talkers" who prevent research into Parkinson's. Mistry warns against fatalism: "In a culture where destiny is embraced as the paramount force, we are all puppets." Despite that, his primary characters often accept fate as the only graceful alternative. Family Matters ends without strong closure and that is just as well. For we have learnt along the way that even in a culture riddled with fatalists, the common man holds his head up high and always emerges from battle, relatively unscathed. At one point in the narrative, Yezad and his boss peer into a mirror and Mr.Kapur asks, "See that? The faces of ordinary family men, not heroes." I respectfully beg to differ.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, family matters
Review: Once again, Rohinton Mistry turns his keen analytical eye on modern India. Nariman Vakeel, a seventy-nine year old man who suffers from Parkinson's disease, breaks his ankle. As the members of his family shift to cope with his incapacitation, their interrelationships and balance of power teeter, totter and threaten to collapse. The challenges mount and each family member must face his or her own demons. As in A Fine Balance, government and societal corruption play a large role in the progression of the story. But this is not another A Fine Balance. Mistry has introduced a whole new cast of characters and array of issues for thought. In short, Mistry has crafted another story and more characters that grab you and refuse to let you go.
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Summary: My review of Family Matters
Review: Rohinton Mistry has done it again. Family Matters is a novel about the emotional, physical, and financial strain of caring for someone who has Parkinson's disease. Family Matters is also a portrait of India and the problems that exist there. Nairman Vakeel is a retired English professor who suffers from Parkinson's disease. He is the father of one biological daughter named Roxana, one stepson named Jal, and one step daughter named Coomy. Mistry writes about the physical effects Parkinson's has on the body with such detail. The harsh effects Parkinsons has on a person's speech and physical mobility is well described in this novel. The stress of caring for someone with Parkinsons disease can be great. This is clearly evident when Coomy and Jal thrust the responsibility of caring for their father to Roxana and her family after it becomes unbearable for them. There are many themes in this novel, but perhaps the strongest is religious prejudice. In India, it is important to marry and even associate with people of the same faith to avoid scorn by one's family. Nairman belongs to the Parsi faith and falls in love with a Catholic woman named Lucy. Their relationship is strongly discouraged, but their very public affair continues long after Nairman gets married to a widow of the same faith. Nairman has dreams about Lucy and his wife through the novel that reflect a sense of regret and loss about both women. Mistry describes the declining physical effects that Parkinson's has on a person's speech and mobility. All his characters are so well developed. He puts them in situations that reflect the problems of his country well. With Nairman's medical cost soaring, his son in law Yezad is forced to turn to illegal gambling to make ends meet. Yezad refuses to help his wife Roxana in caring for her father in the beginning of the novel. It is very interesting to see how Yezad's attitude and personality changes after some life altering events. There is another character in the book named Vila who writes and reads letters for people who are unable to write and read for themselves. In one of his letters, he describes how a young man for a lower caste was killed for associating with a woman from a higher caste. Poverty is so prevalent India that even children take bribes and money from their classmates. There are many different characters in the novel like the violinist Daisy who dreams to be a professional musician. Edul is a interesting character. He is an inept handyman who just yearns to be helpful. Mr Kapur is the owner of a sporting goods store and Yezad's boss. He yearns for the India of old where citizens did not have to live with the threat of violence and riots depicted clearly in the novel. Family Matters is a wonderful book with many themes and characters. I enjoyed it very much.
Rating:
Summary: Captures the Small Things
Review: Rohinton Mistry has no equal in writing stories with meaning. Though I am moved greatly by stories from Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) and Kirk Martin (Shade of the Maple, The Gravel Drive), Mistry writes on a different plane. An exquisite novel to savor.
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Summary: In my humble opinion....
Review: Rohinton Mistry is quite simply the best writer out there right now. I have read this book and "A Fine Balance" and have derived more pleasure, sorrow, and enjoyment from his writing than from any other author. His books show humanity at its finest and at its worst. Do yourself a favor and read his books, because there is a reason he is always nominated for awards.... HE IS THE BEST!!! Can't wait for the next one... will it take another 7 years? I hope not!
Rating:
Summary: Should Have Received the Booker
Review: Rohinton Mistry is well on his way to receiving a major literary award. Shunning postmodern experimental deconstructionalism, political correctness, and all the modern shibboleths that litter the cultural landscape, Mistry has seen fit to write straight from the heart in a voice that creates verisimilitude with reality. His characters are alive, his choices of details are correct, his moral dilemmas are true, and he brings us from the personal to the political, from the individual to a whole social, economic, and living world. He gives us a small situation, a family in conflict, a once vital man now struggling with illness, and he shows us all the connections to the past, to youth, to loss, to a struggle for redemption. His themes are those of great nineteenth-century novelists, of Tolstoy and Proust, and these themes live in today's world as well. Why have so many writers abandoned them for an easier self-indulgence of their egos? Because it's so much harder to be an artist, to write well, to tell a story that carries universal meaning, and it takes great courage to stand on one's principles, to take a risk and perhaps appear out of fashion.
Mistry is in the tradition of Turgenev, Chekhov, and Tolstoy. But he is his own voice and brings something unique to us. He brings Bombay, decrepit in its current state, but with a rich past that now is only remembered in photographs treasured by those who still care, although they too are a dying breed. He brings a family to us, replete with economic struggles, childhood struggles, marital struggles, political struggles, and spiritual struggles, but Mistry's talent is to take us to a far higher level, a universal level where we can see ourselves very clearly.
That is the talent of a true artist, one whom you shouldn't miss.
I read recently that Mistry canceled his book tour to the U.S. because he was constantly being harassed at airports due to his "foreign" appearance. What a shame. I would love to say hello to him, just once.
Rating:
Summary: Poverty does not prevent the existence of compassion
Review: Rohinton Mistry posits that even in a society in which the government is corrupt and the poverty level in inhumane, small decencies still exist - decencies that promote humor, compassion, and a bittersweet degree of compassion and tenderness.
Family Matters is set in Bombay in the 90s. The deterioration of the city is paralleled by the physical condition of an elderly professor with Parkinson's disease. Set against the horrors of overcrowding, family secrets, tensions between the various family members, Mistry fully explores the tightrope walk that constitutes just getting through life for most people in the world - yet he does so with humor, tenderness, and a haunting feeling of love.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Novel to be Easily Forgotten
Review: Rohinton Mistry's novel has at its heart a very important issue -what when elders are incapacitated and take to bed ? Who cares for them and how? In the course of this,Mistry provides profound insights into human nature and its capacity to deal with exigencies, which as we see in the novel is quite different for each individual . Roxanna's fortitude for example is quite exempelary while Jal though a nice person , feels unable to rise up to the demands of caring for a sick person, and Yezad takes refuge in religion.
The canvas cannot be considered to be broad as the entire action unfolds in two flats of suburban Mumbai but the drama of human predicament enacted therein has a universal reach. The loneliness of old age compounded by total incapacity leads Nariman to meander endlessly in the corridors of memories and we come to know of his doomed affair with a non Parsi and an equally doomed marraige with a Parsi girl of his parents' choice entirely through his ramblings . At the same time Yezad and his boss are struggling with Shiv Sena fanatics and their inconsequential demands regarding petty issues . The Parsi sectarianism which is woven intricately into the plot has been cleverely juxtaposed with Hindu fanaticism , implying that intolerence is not exclusive to a particular community . In condemning one Mistry condemns both.
It cannot be denied that a sense of loss pervades the novel; a loss which is not merely material ,but goes far beyond and does not even spare memories, and emotions that had once been .Certainly there is hope and that comes in the form of Jehangir and Murad . If the next generation is as sensitive and caring as these two children ,there is always scope to rejoice and reaffirm our belief in the intrinsic goodness of human nature .
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