THE CONFINES by Anu Kandikuppa • Book Reviews

Fiction by Anu Kandikuppa, reviewed by Emily Webber
THE CONFINES (Veliz Books)

I was initially drawn to Anu Kandikuppa’s debut, The Confines—a short story collection about women in India and the U.S. facing cultural restrictions and a male-dominated hierarchy—because I knew I would find pieces of myself in the stories even if they took place in another country or focused on a different culture. Any reader will be able to see themself in the worlds these characters inhabit through the strangeness of changing family dynamics, the ebb and flow of long relationships, the pull of obligations, and a world that seems to push people towards isolation and unrest.

Marriage is a central theme in this collection, and the title, The Confines, refers to the limitations of being in a conservative society where divorce and therapy are not considered options—one where a brave face is put on for the outside world while the inside is full of turmoil. Many of these stories show toxic cycles playing out. In the opening story, “Lunch at the Monsoon,” a pregnant wife goes to a buffet with her husband, where she binges on food, and he typically shows restraint. They bicker back and forth and almost seem repulsed by each other, but there’s also a hint of playfulness and a comfort they derive from acting out these roles. In the next story, “The Reddys,” an elderly couple fixates on health issues instead of discussing the real source of their angst, that their son doesn’t call or see them. These initial stories hint at what follows—familial obligations either shirked or upheld. However, the relationships in later stories become more complex and darker.

Several stories portray characters in arranged marriages or hurried into relationships due to the societal pressure to marry young. These couples are expected to spend a lifetime together, with little real knowledge of each other. Not surprisingly, this leads to conflict, resulting in everything from minor annoyances to neglect.

Women walk into marriage traps often set by other women, then won’t admit that something’s gone awry. They powder their faces and go to work, or they speak sweetly to their children, set beautiful tables, and then sit on their toilets and sob. Or they eat too much and cry in their kitchens and blame the onions. Or, worst of all, they tell happy stories about love and marriage so convincing that their children and grandchildren get married, too. (136)

“If It Shines” shows the futility women face if they do admit to having problems. This story includes a rare moment when a woman speaks out and begs a friend of her husband for money so she can leave him. It later becomes clear that her husband has been physically abusing both her and her daughter. The family friend doesn’t help her, instead deciding she is a “quarrelsome blabbermouth. Families were supposed to be sealed units, not leaky buckets.”

Kandikuppa explores the long arc of a relationship in a trio of connected stories, each representing a different stage. The stories move from the beginning of a marriage in “Please Don’t Make Me Hate You,” to raising a child in “Gardening,” and then to old age in “The Uglies.” With a heavy focus on dialogue between the married couple, Meenu and Adi, these stories show how people enter relationships with a set of expectations and often things turn out differently. We hope and we try to mold the other person into what we want, but often people don’t change. Even so, we can’t imagine them not being around as the years go on.

Not only does Kandikuppa reveal her characters in their most intimate settings, but she uses these opportunities, carefully describing their physical attributes, to show how their heavy emotional lives become part of their tangible presence in the world.

Her flesh had become as soft as flour kneaded with too much water. Her will softened, too, and in the months before her death, she’d sit on her toilet with the door open, allowing anyone a glimpse of her pasty-white thighs. And at mealtimes she’d spit food on her plate, scrape her chair back, and walk off as if to say, This meal has not gone to my liking. This life has not gone to my liking. (104)

A pervasive sadness settles over the characters because the lives they have are not what they desire, and they cannot shape them into something else. Yet, the characters also share moments of simple tenderness. In difficult situations, it is easy to say that a person should just change their circumstances, but in these moments, Kandikuppa shows how hard it is to walk away from someone. Ultimately, the characters long for connection, but their personal and cultural baggage often prevents them from effectively reaching out to others. So, rather than change their situations, they inch toward tenacious acceptance.

One of the most memorable stories is also one that is quieter than the rest. In “Notes on an Affair,” nothing explosive happens, but the story is no less powerful. A woman leaves home to work for an electronics company. She makes good money and is successful. She longs to marry a co-worker, R, who spends time with her. They never so much as touch, but she’s totally enamored with him and longs for his attention. Then he tells her that his parents have arranged a marriage for him and he’s engaged.

Nothing hurts me very much. I’ve had career setbacks. Bad reviews, delayed promotions. My mother passed away after a prolonged illness. I took these events in my stride. Perhaps this is the meaning. Perhaps these events would have hurt more—perhaps I’d have been devastated by one or other of them—if not for that evening when R came to my room and sat on my bed. The evening I learned that I am not special, that I am not exempt from being dealt unimaginable blows, that the mere fact that I want a thing more than anything else in the world would not be enough.

This is where Kandikuppa hits the reader in the heart again, where we can see glimpses of ourselves even if we are in radically different circumstances. In this story I feel that pull of nostalgia for all the different paths my own life could have taken, seeing how every decision places you at a crossroads, leading down one way but abandoning another.

Ultimately, The Confines reminds us that we are all longing for connection, and often it doesn’t end up as we wish. So all we have are our unspoken desires.

The Confines by Anu Kandikuppa was published in March 2025 by Veliz Books.

Emily Webber is a reader of all the things, hiding out in South Florida with her husband and son. A writer of criticism, fiction, and nonfiction, her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Ploughshares Blog, The Writer, Five Points, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere. She’s the author of a chapbook of flash fiction, Macerated. Read more at emilyannwebber.com.