My favorite part of India was definitely Kerala. So in typical librarian fashion, I cam home and searched both Novelist and our catalog for Kerala - Fiction and only two titles: Mistress and Atlas of Unknowns. I enjoyed the setting of this book, it was too long and overly metaphorical. One of the main characters of this book is a retired kathakali dancer and a great deal of the book is devoted to this. I was glad to have seen some kathakali dancing, or it would have been totally lost on me. And while the concept of an artist having difficulty connecting him/herself to their art and the rest of the world is universal and interesting, the never ending descriptions and mythology of the dance got a little old. The other part of this book followed the dancer's married niece and her affair with a white man who comes to interview the dancer. This was interesting, but also seemed a bit too long. I would probably only recommend this to people who have traveled to Kerala or planning on going there in the near future.