September 12, 2024
THE WEDDING, by Gurjinder Basran
Gurjinder Basran’s The Wedding begins with a Jane Austen epigraph, which had me supposing this might be an Uzma Jalaluddin-esque modern take on social mores, but set among Sikh-Canadian families instead of in the Muslim-Canadian community that Jalaluddin writes about, and while there’s a bit of that, there’s also none of the formality, which makes for a wild literary adventure, and I loved it. Each chapter moves between the perspectives of family members, neighbours, event staff, and those of Devi and Baby themselves, bride and groom, whose wedding marks the joining of two prominent families in Vancouver. And things are not going well—Baby’s dad is driving a cab to earn extra money to afford the lavish occasion, there are rumours of Devi having cheated on a trip to Las Vegas with a local gangster involves with a shooting that put Baby’s brother in a wheelchair, Baby’s not sure if he ever really loved Devi or if the wedding preparation has turned her into Bridezilla. Meanwhile Devi is considering if she’ll manage to avoid a trap like the marriage between her mother and abusive father. The wedding photographer’s mother has set him up on a date with Baby’s out of town cousin, having written a profile that falsely claims he’s an engineer. Local journalist Priya Deol is doling out love advice, but perhaps needs help of her own. The bigoted neighbour has concerns about the noise, as the wedding unfolds over days, characters considering the role of ritual and tradition, whether the why of it all matters, what it means to listen to one’s heart. A delicious page-turner, but also rich with depth and meaning, The Wedding is a terrific read.
