The Archer by Shruti Swamy

Release: September 7th 2021
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Source: Algonquin Tours
Find it at: GoodReads , Amazon , Barnes & Noble , Books-A-Million ,Bookshop ,IndieBound

Kiese Laymon called Shruti Swamy’s debut book of stories, A House Is a Body, “one of the greatest short story collections of the 2020s.” Now, Swamy brings us an accomplished and immersive coming-of-age novel set in the Bombay of the 1960s and 1970s.

As a child, Vidya exists to serve her family, watch over her younger brother, and make sense of a motherless world. One day she catches sight of a class where the students are learning Kathak, a precise, dazzling form of dance that requires the utmost discipline and focus. Kathak quickly becomes the organizing principle of Vidya’s life. And even as she leaves home for college, falls in love with her best friend, and battles demands on her time, her future, and her body. Can Vidya give herself over to her art and also be a wife in Bombay’s carefully delineated society? Can she shed the legacy of her own imperfect, unknowable mother? Must she, herself, also become a mother?

It is Intensely lyrical and deeply sensual, with writing as rhythmically mesmerizing as Kathak itself. The Archer is about the transformative power of art and the possibilities that love can open when we’re ready.

About the Author:

The winner of two O. Henry Awards, Shruti Swamy’s work has appeared in The Paris Review, the Kenyon Review Online, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. In 2012, she was Vassar College’s 50th W.K. Rose Fellow, and has been awarded residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and Hedgebrook.

She is a Kundiman fiction fellow, a 2017 – 2018 Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University, and a recipient of a 2018 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Algonquin Books published in August 2020 her story collection A House Is a Body and her novel The Archer is forthcoming.

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The Archer Review:

This book was simply exquisite! I loved how the author captured Vidya’s emotions. We all have obligations on our shoulders, which our family expects us to follow. Sometimes, our dreams and aspirations have to take a back seat. I loved how Vidya found her passion for dancing and how she could balance it in her life.

As someone who has heard family stories growing up in Mumbai during this era, I thought the author depicted the backstop accurately, like how she describes Versova. When you finish reading it, you feel like you read a biography of a family member, and your heart melts for them. From childhood to college to adulthood, you see Vidya’s beautiful bond with her mother, how Kathak impacts her life, and her responsibilities of maturity. The author touches on many topics through this one character, like love, loss, ambitions, feminism, duties, and hope. Even the supporting characters like Radha and Anand were memorable. On a side note, I also loved how the author highlighted the beauty of Kathak, an art form that I feel is even diminishing in India.

Perhaps the only criticism I have towards the story is the construction of the book. There are only five chapters in the book of 300 pages. Hence you can imagine the length of each of them. Personally, it takes time for me to get invested in a book when I see I have to read 50 pages of a chapter in one go, and it’s hard to keep track. Don’t get me wrong; I loved the story after the few pages. Yet, I feel the book would have been perfect if we had more chapter breakups.

Overall, “The Archer” is a beautiful piece of literary fiction that I adored.