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"  The opening of Thrity Umrigar&amp;#039;s fourth novel, The Weight of Heaven (Harper), almost\u2014but not quite\u2014prepares us for the torrent of heartache and anguish to come as attractive, successful Frank and Ellie Benton reel from the sudden death of their only child. When Frank is offered a job in India, the couple invests tentative hope in the move, expecting a land of snake charmers and sacred cows that will help them forget\u2014and maybe salvage their crumbling marriage.  Unfortunately for the Bentons, this book is no Eat, Pray, Love, and India has other plans for them. Managing a factory in a small village, Frank is plunged into a volatile labor dispute and endless other struggles. The landscape and culture, both evocatively depicted by the India-born Umrigar, provide Ellie with some distractions, but she is dismayed by India&amp;#039;s effect on her husband, who begins to turn into a stereotypically obtuse American: &amp;quot;She had certainly not imagined a teeming, heaving country that would become a player in their domestic drama.&amp;quot; And such drama! Frank blames Ellie for their boy&amp;#039;s death and becomes obsessed with the son of the couple&amp;#039;s domestic help. Umrigar loads her characters (especially Frank) with so much psychological baggage that it can be hard to emotionally connect with them. But like Ellie, who at one point abandons herself ecstatically to the music and dancing at the village Diwali festival, we&amp;#039;re pulled along by the intensity of this sweepingly cinematic story. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/books/reviews/a10107/book-release-the-weight-of-heaven-317219/>