Maggie and Paul are in many ways a typical middle-aged couple who’ve grown apart with time. Their marriage, always based on Paul’s ambitions in cancer research and Maggie’s supporting him, now involves little more than going through the motions. Paul has, in fact, had multiple affairs, and he maintains a long-term mistress. Maggie fills her days with meeting friends and charity work, doing the books for a local Catholic church.
When their adult daughter, 26-year-old Jenn, returns early from a year in India, both parents are worried. She doesn’t return alone, but with a guru in tow, a pudgy, poorly-dressed man who’s older than Jenn named Arun (rhymes with moon). Jenn is convinced that Arun has discovered the key to the universe, and plans to marry him and spend the rest of her time changing the lives of the poor masses in India. Paul is convinced the man only wants to turn his bright, talented daughter into little more than a submissive beggar. Maggie is more worried about Jenn’s happiness–she wants to understand but finds herself mistrustful of Arun and his intentions. Jenn wants to hold a backyard wedding, intimate and quiet, before moving to India with Arun for a Hindu ceremony.
Of course there are other things going on in their lives. Paul’s entire career might be in jeopardy. His cancer research has been successful and he feels himself on the edge of a big break, but he may or may not be fudging some of outcomes of his lab trials. He is convinced that Maggie holds the key to his career, but he can’t seem to get through to her. Meanwhile, Maggie is receiving attention from a younger man, and it’s not unwelcome.
This book purports to be about parenting adult children and cross-cultural marriage, but really what Jenn and Arun’s relationship does is light up the cracks and flaws in Maggie and Paul’s. The author intentionally shows us how Maggie and Paul’s separate reactions to Arun highlight their own personalities. Paul is brash and stand-offish, not to mention paternalistic (he knows what’s best for his little girl). But he’s not all bad. He’s motivated by his love for Jenn and their bond. Maggie, on the other hand, is much more pliable. Looking at Jenn’s starry eyes causes her to take a deep breath and re-evaluate her own marriage. The storyline spends time in Maggie and Paul’s past, looking at their college relationship as well as their upbringings and parents. Arun, meanwhile, never really comes into his own as a character. We see him and Jenn only through the eyes of Maggie and Paul, and never really get a good idea of what their lives in India were like. I assume this was intentional on the part of the author, because it’s obvious that Maggie and Paul themselves don’t have any clear idea of who their daughter’s fiancé really is or what he really cares about. His ideas are a sort of jumble of various trends and ideas–microfinance, trials as blessings, etc.
Appetite is a thought-provoking book about how a child’s upcoming nuptials can cause you to rethink your own. The ideas of appetite and food are intertwined throughout. Many scenes take place around the dinner table, and we see Maggie learning to enjoy Indian food while Paul resists it. The book has multiple layers and creates realistic, multi-faceted characters.