Kirti Bhadresa's ​An Astonishment of Stars

Reviewed by Salma Hussain

(ECW, 2024)

Kirti Bhadresa’s dazzling debut collection of short stories, An Astonishment of Stars, examines the often-invisible lives of Indian-Canadian women and girls. In these tightly coiled and exquisitely rendered short stories, Bhadresa invites readers into the lives of ordinary characters and tilts and twists the lens just-so, in order that the truth and beauty of their lives is refracted in startling and compelling new ways.
 
Bhadresa presents fourteen beautiful short stories arranged in three parts. The majority of the stories in Parts I and II are helmed by female characters who are bonded to their Indian heritage and traditions, but who also wish to move forward in creative new ways. Cleverly and thought-provokingly, Bhadresa does not provide simplistic or pat scenarios. Each of these stories about female characters presents women who ache for community and connection, but do so in their own distinctive, singular ways.
 
In “Lighten Up,” we follow Naina, a young music student who meets with her estranged aunt, Shanti. Shanti happens to live in the city where Naina has come to work on “writing music to bridge her two cultures.” Shanti accepts Naina as she is and lets her be, without ever trying to mold her, impose upon her or rush her. In this way, Shanti imparts a philosophy, ethos and lifestyle to her young niece that, upon closer inspection, is one that is more beautifully rooted in (Hindu) tradition than it originally appears. In a similar vein, the short story “Backstage Passes,” where two sisters from a conservative Indian Canadian family make divergent choices, takes an atypical and riveting look at the full cost of rebellion, freedom and detachment from the family unit. What Bhadresa does particularly well is add depth and nuance to each of her stories and characters: these are deceptively simple stories of quietly strong women who have long been under-represented (and misrepresented) in the Canadian literary landscape. Bhadresa expertly invites readers to examine the emotions and yearnings of these characters and reflect upon our own biases and misunderstandings.
 
In “Fundraiser,” Teja, a mother, keenly reflects upon her sense of outsiderness among the parents at her son’s school as she considers the fundraising events hosted by the school. The events, such as wine tasting evenings and sausage-buying fundraisers, are ones which “[aren’t] organized with families like [Teja’s] in mind.” The tender portrayal of Teja teetering towards a balance in her life and her touching conclusion that “[t]here have to be ways to belong and also be [yourself]” is an assertion that may well encapsulate one of the core messages at the heart of this polished collection.
 
“Daksha Takes the Cake,” about a writer who takes up baking in order to win a competition and to then have the time and resources for her novel-writing, is a terrific story about the pressures to present “purposefully exoticized” creations/narratives that are palatable to a white audience but otherwise inauthentic and unsatisfactory to its racialized creator. How Bhadresa plays with gardening metaphors in this story (as well as in many other stories) is a masterclass in adding layers and profundity. Particularly in this story, what Bhadresa leaves unsaid is as equally startling and illuminating as what she includes.
 
While Bhadresa crafts most of her stories from the POV of Indian Canadian female characters, she does not solely do so. The latter half of Part II and almost all of Part III showcase shorter stories from surprisingly different perspectives and lived experiences. “The Illness” is presented through the lens of an Indian immigrant husband and father running a restaurant with his wife in small-town Canada. The achingly tender depiction of the relationship between husband and wife, their hopes and ambitions for their life in Canada, the micro-aggressions and kindnesses from their neighbours—let’s just say that you’ll need to keep a tissue box nearby for this one. “Heads Are Going to Roll,” from the point-of-view of Arnold, a bombastic, entitled head of an engineering company in Ontario, riotously reveals Bhadresa’s impressive range and sense of humour. This story about an old, white Head Honcho from the East flying to Calgary to lambast the office for the dip in profits during a recession is achingly funny and smart. It’s also a surprisingly fresh and contemporary take on the disconnect between cultures and communities right here in Canada. As an added bonus, this debut collection has the most adorable motley crew of four-legged characters I’ve seen portrayed in recent literature! It is a collection full of dogs and their lovers.
 
In short, a Bhadresa short story will either make you laugh or make you cry, and frequently it will do both. An Astonishment of Stars is a deeply nuanced, intelligent new voice in the Canlit landscape that tells stories about our struggle to contemporaneously belong and to break free—or, as I imagine Bhadresa might explain it, she simply sows stories about how we branch forward gloriously once we’ve rooted ourselves strongly. 

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​Salma Hussain writes poetry and prose. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Fiddlehead, The Humber Literary Review, Temz Review, Queens Quarterly, CV2, The Antigonish Review, The Hong Kong Review, Ex-Puritan and Pleiades: Literature in Context. Her young adult novel, The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan, about a young girl’s immigration and menstruation journey, was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. ​It was selected for ALA’s Rise: A Feminist Book Project List and shortlisted for the Geoffrey Wilson Historical Fiction prize.