Dirty Laundry

An unnamed village in Cork, Ireland, is a social-media-fueled soap opera in Bose’s suspenseful debut. Ciara lives for her own camera, with her rich husband and three perfectly-dressed-at-all-times children supporting actors in an Instagram fiction. The mostly fawning comments from the neighbors include some from her Indian neighbor, Mishti, who left love in India for an arranged marriage to cold, miserly Parth. Her only joy is her daughter, Maya. Decidedly not fawning is neighbor Lauren, who inherited her home in the wealthy enclave that Ciara rules. Lauren doesn’t fit in and doesn’t care to. She carries a child in a sling almost constantly, while Ciara’s Instagram-approved parenting involves virtually no contact. Lauren’s house is dirty, her clothes are too, and her husband is the furthest man from Parth imaginable. The women’s sniping relationships with each other and their families build to a boiling point, one whose violent outcome is revealed near the beginning of the story in a scene that lingers mysteriously in the background as the drama festers. Mishti’s struggles are a highlight here, sad though they are, with Bose’s writing of a desperate character sadly reminiscent of Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queen.