Shifting Sands: A Clash of Cultures Book

Chandra Prasad's On Borrowed Wings has joined the ranks of favorite books that I like to revisit from time to time. It is most thoroughly a comfort read, if only because I know how things end and find the book a completely satisfying read. Not all the questions are answered and frankly the second time around I am still left wanting more, but this is such a wonderful story questioning gender roles, and crossing class and cultural boundaries that it may be comforting to read, but it is most certainly in no way fluffy. Ultimately it's a story about growing up and finding your place in the world, something surely most of us can identify with.

I already wrote about it a couple of years ago, but it's on my mind now after a second read (originally I borrowed it from the library, but recently decided I needed to own it so bought the paper edition), so I feel like writing about it again. I feel like lavishing more praise upon it and perhaps someone else will pick it up and enjoy it as much as I have.

Adele Pietra is a young woman with few opportunities in 1936. Much more her father's daughter, she is a dreamer, happiest gazing at the sky and losing herself in books. Her mother married down when she wed the handsome son of Italian immigrants ensuring a life of hard work as a laundress in Stony Creek, Connecticut. Where once she was a summer visitor, a wealthy "Cottager", she now struggles as the wife of a quarryman, living a life not at all as she expected it to turn out.

Her pride and joy is her son, Charles, who she coaches each evening in preparation for entrance exams to Yale. It's her dream that he'll pull himself up and out of the life of near poverty they lead. There's a rivalry between Adele and Charles that isn't helped by her mother's favoritism of her brother, or the fact that her father sticks up for what her mother views as Adele's lackadaisical behavior.

When both father and brother are killed in an accident at the quarry suddenly, Adele faces an even more uncertain future. With few options left, Adele's mother threatens to marry her off to an older man, another quarryman, thus assuring the cycle of poverty will be renewed. Adele has other ideas. She cuts off her hair and decides to take on the identity of her brother who had just been accepted to Yale before his death. It's a risky venture, but one Adele seemingly falls into easily. She plays the part of Charlie so well at times you forget underneath who she really is.

Some of my favorite passages are where Adele grapples with her contradictory personas.

"Pulling on my trousers, I tucked the length of my skirt awkwardly into the waistband. Although the extra fabric ballooned around my middle, I hid it well enough with my coat. This I buttoned to my chin so that the collar of my blouse didn't show. I pulled on long wool socks and my boy's shoes. I kept my head low. All in all, I felt quite uncomfortable, though I was finally the person I'd been portraying; an amalgam of both sexes, passing by only the humblest margin as either."

Prasad never deals with issues in a heavy-handed manner, rather they are a natural outgrowth of the story and jive with the period she writes about. She never takes a stance but simply tells her story. Prasad is herself a Yale graduate and she paints such a pleasing portrait of student life you almost wish you could step into the pages of the book despite the turmoil Adele often feels.

The paper edition has extra material in the back of the book including a Q&A with the author and I was interested to hear what her inspiration was for On Borrowed Wings:

"One seed for this novel was planted during my junior year of college. In an American history class focusing on women in the South, my professor talked briefly about females who had co-opted the male identity in order to assume roles that would have been barred to them otherwise. I became interested in the idea of altering one's gender in order to thrive, if not simply to survive. Since I knew that Yale had opened its doors to undergraduate women only in 1969, On Borrowed Wings seemed to take shape inside my head with an ease all its own. Both the women throughout history who have dared to impersonate men and the first undergraduate females at Yale inspired the main character, Adele."

In thinking more about the story and how it ends, I think I prefer not to have all the questions answered tidily. The novel covers only Adele's Freshman year at Yale, but I like to think that Adele pulled off her masquerade and that her life's wishes came true.