The Splintered Day

By V.K. Mina

First novel by Indian American poet and novelist which is in the words of Jane DeLynn "Very good, very intelligent, moving...An exciting debut"

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1852424524
• ISBN13: 9781852424527
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

some other reviews

Alarmingly acute, horrifyingly readable, startlingly chaste. - Fay Weldon There is some real thought here - about race, love, urban life. - The New York Times Urbane...frank and witty prose [which] follows an unruly narrative path, slipping from past to present with an engaging grace...The Splintered Day is a promising debut...that brings to mind the short stories of Mary Gaitskill. Like Gaitskill, V.K. Mina is a wry and empathetic illuminator of damaged life. - Lawrence Chua Elle aime bien se nourrir de la chair de jeunes gens étourdis...Des fois, j'ai eu l'impression d'être en présence d'un double feminin. Beaucoup plus rusé et plus intelligent. L'oeil de l'araignée. - Dany Laferrière Margaret Atwood meets Riot Grrl. Readers of Dale Peck's MARTIN AND JOHN might recognize distant parallels, although the skewed and kaleidoscopic framework here is more idiosyncratic. Mina has found a structure and several voices suited to the deadening, tiring and confusing use-or-be-used world she describes. As alert to heritage as she remains, Mina can come across as a queer-positive Henry Miller for the year 2000, a chronicler of the ways and means that desire and angst make themselves felt. - Publisher's Weekly

Moving and observant

Moving and observant. I particularly like the way Mina depicts the way different parts/moments of life impinge on each other. A dry, Dawn Powell kind of New York novel, mixed with a Madame Bovary-ish search for glamourous romances. The handling of a Tamil/Indian woman's perspective was well-done, using South Asian culture without masalafying it.