Rishi Reddi's 'Passage West' plumbs an important story of Indian immigrant farmers, but isn't quite up to the task as fiction
, “Karma and Other Stories,” feel understated and effective; here, perhaps feeling compelled by the urgency of the story, she tips over into melodrama, dampening its impact.
Not long after his arrival, he’s beaten in a savage hate crime in Washington state. He decides to take his friend Karak up on his offer to join him on a cantaloupe farm. Karak’s uncle, Jivan, a Sikh, welcomes the Hindu Ram into the fold: “You are like my family to us; we are from branches of the same tree.” Ram spends days recovering from the injuries he suffered in the attack, although he hides the truth about the origin of his wounds.
There are certainly things to admire about “Passage West.” It’s a well researched novel about a time and place in American history that few outside Southern California likely know about, and Reddi does a very good job evoking the physical and political landscape of the early-20th century Imperial Valley. She’s particularly sharp on the effects of California’s Alien Land Laws, two xenophobic acts that prohibited many immigrants from owning farmland.
Then there is the melodrama. In one scene, Jivan, who fought for the British army, comes to a bizarrely sudden realization that the U.K. hasn’t been fair to the people of India, an opinion he previously resisted. In a scene that’s cinematic in the worst way, he throws his military medals into the Salton Sea. Not long afterward, Karak, who had cut his long hair in preparation for his marriage, makes a weirdly similar gesture, tossing his cut locks into the Colorado River.
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