Sisters and secrets in an appealing tale

We all enjoy variety in our reading. Like food, the familiar soon stales, so novels about exotic places and different cultures always appeal.

Add a quest for the American dream, sibling rivalry and corrosive secrets, with Indian and American settings as debut novelist Tania James does in "Atlas of Unknowns," and the result is a beguiling tale of treachery and remorse.

The protagonists are the two Vallara sisters, Linno and Anju. Christians, they live with their grandmother and father, Melvin, who works as a driver for a wealthy businessman. Like so many in the Third World the family has ambition and drive but lacks those opportunities that change circumstances.

Their lives, too, have been haunted by tragedies. When she was 7, Linno, the eldest, saw her mother, Gracie, walk into the ocean and drown; a few years later, she lost her right hand in an accident.

Both sisters dream of better lives. Anju excels at school, and Linno, a talented artist, teaches herself after the accident to draw and paint with her left hand. As Linno finds work painting advertisements, Anju wants to go to America, acquire a green card and bring her family over to live. She soon apparently gets her wish.

A visiting American teacher announces that she will award a scholarship to the most accomplished student, who will then spend a year in a New York high school. Anju's grades are good, and she is a finalist, but when she alters Linno's signature on a painting, the impressed American awards the scholarship to her.

Deception extracts its usual high price, as once in New York, Anju soon finds the American dream is not as easily attained as she had thought. She temporarily lives with the Solanki family, originally from Bombay, who have made it big -- Mrs. Solanki is a "semicelebrity" in television, until she faces unexpected challenges and must move out.

Both sisters, in their time apart, arrive at moments of truth about themselves -- Linno has a long-hidden secret to confess, as does Anju. And the secrets in this carefully plotted novel do not entirely surprise. Like many first novels, it is notable more for its vividly described characters than for its plot. James, though, is a perceptive writer whose insights into immigration, American life and Indian customs enrich this appealing tale.

Judith Chettle is a Richmond-based book reviewer and writer.