Meera Syal, author of the prizewinning Anita and Me and co-writer of the sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, has an agenda. She is interested in women suspended between two cultures: Indian tradition and liberal British society.
The three Punjabi women at the heart of Life have each found their middle ground on the fault line between east and west. Chila, whose elaborate wedding opens the book, wants nothing more than domesticity. She is scarcely able to believe her luck at hooking Deepak, an eligible charmer. Her friend Sunita, already married, has graduated from complacency to disillusionment, while Tania, svelte and trendy, spends her time working on her career in television.
This trio, with their contrasting goals and shared histories, should be a good jumping-off point from which to explore the benefits and problems of Asian/British integration. In practice, the device fails because the set-up is so familiar. How many novels have been published this year featuring three female best friends - one romantic, one cynical and one ambitious? How many of those best friends have been driven apart by a man or men, only to fall back together in tears by the end of the book, usually in mutual outrage at the stupidity of said man or men?
The strength of Syal's writing is in the details, most notably her ability to capture the rhythms of Indian speech, so brilliantly parodied in Goodness Gracious Me. While Sunita and Tania mutter "Oh, I dunno", their aunts and mothers-in-law declare to one another: "Daughters are only visitors in our lives, hena?" "Hai, they are lent to us for a short while and then we have to hand them over to strangers like -" "Bus tickets!"
With most of Life written in London-speak, and the girls' preoccupations with clothes and hairstyles given full attention, it's easy to gloss over Syal's more serious concerns. The real-life case of Jasbinder Singh, whose husband burnt himself and their baby to death when she would not allow him custody, simmers in the background but is never quite allowed to come to the boil. As a heartwarming tale of three girls who just want to be happy, Life succeeds - but it could have been much more.
