The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

Remy Wadia has lived in the United States for several years, coming for a graduate degree, meeting his American wife, Kathy, and making it home. Though home is also Bombay, where his widowed mother still lives and where Remy is now returning with plans to adopt a baby.

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar begins as Remy arrives in Bombay, meets with his friends who have arranged with their unmarried niece that Remy and Kathy will adopt the baby she is expecting. Remy has not been back to Bombay for several years, not since the death of his father, Cyrus.

Remy has always had a complicated relationship with his mother, Shirin, a woman quick to anger. Who spoke words in anger that he has never forgotten, while his father made it very clear that Remy was his most beloved. When Remy discovers, on his return, that his mother is in hospital and seriously ill, he has no choice but to take charge of her care.

Remy is a nice man, a kind man, sensible and self-aware. His marriage is strong, husband and wife supportive of each other, tolerant and kind, and honest. They will need each other during this time apart.

As Remy cares for his mother, now diminished in her illness, his feelings for her change, he sees her with compassion and love in her helplessness.

This is a novel about members of the close knit Parsi community living in modern day Bombay, renamed Mumbai in 1995. Remy is from an affluent family, his father a successful businessman, a donor to many causes, a generous man to all. Remy and his friends have the privilege of a good education and as they spend time together as adults, we see the younger people they once were.

We read about Remy’s early days in America and his relationship with the woman who will become his wife, and her family that also becomes his own.

The Museum of Failures is a novel about discovery, of the truth of the past. What was witnessed by a child, is now understood so differently as an adult. It is about love, and betrayal and grief. It is about the “stew” of marriage, and of the love Shirin feels for her husband after his death. That no one knows the inside of another’s marriage. And, that everyone does the best they can, and that we are all fallible.

His time in Bombay with his mother will profoundly change Remy. He will discover long held secrets and come to an understanding of his parents, and his own childhood, that will bring him peace and hope for the future. 

The Museum of Failures is a good read, a book you’ll not want to put down – and a book that will make you think about your own life and experience, your assumptions and prejudices, and that it can all change for the better is we are open to love.