DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CALCUTTA by...

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CALCUTTA by Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee (Hungry Mind: $14; 303 pp.) After a fire destroyed their home in Montreal in 1973, the husband-and-wife authors spent a year in India. In this diptych memoir, Clark Blaise is the quintessential outsider, passing through the complex society of India but never becoming a part of it. Alternately appalled and charmed, Blaise remains ambivalent toward his adopted city. Bharati Mukherjee discovers her childhood friends are now wealthy women who organize society charity events amid the tumult of the city. As she observes the metamorphosis of her former schoolmates, Mukherjee realizes how living in the West has altered her. Hers is the more interesting story, and she recounts it with a vivacity that the more restrained Blaise lacks.