The Most Precious Substance on Earth by Shashi Bhat

In Shashi Bhat’s often witty and occasionally disturbing coming-of-age novel The Most Precious Substance on Earth, we meet Nina as a shy 14-year-old with a serious crush on her English teacher. Nina’s family is Indian, her parents devout Hindus, steeped in tradition, who worry about their daughter and look forward to a time in the not-too-distant future when she will be “settled” (ie, suitably married with children). But the family lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Nina spends most of her time with her irreverent best friend Amy, absorbing the rebellious youth culture to which she is exposed on a daily basis.

“Structured as a series of linked stories, Bhat’s novel follows Nina through a succession of life choices and career changes as she struggles to figure out who she is and what she wants to become.”

This clash of cultures is one of the novel’s pivotal elements. Nina is divided. She is aware of her responsibility to her family, but her world—1990s urban Canada—is thoroughly modern, a place buzzing with distractions and sexual energy, offering a limitless vista of opportunities that has nothing to do with her Indian heritage.

Structured as a series of linked stories, Bhat’s novel follows Nina through a succession of life choices and career changes as she struggles to figure out who she is and what she wants to become.

Moving on after a shocking, traumatic encounter with her English teacher, Nina learns the art of keeping secrets. When Amy falls in with a new crowd and later drops out of school and out of Nina’s life, Nina is left to navigate her difficult late teens on her own. A few years later she enrols in an MFA program and moves to Baltimore. But loneliness, emotional isolation, and a chronic lack of confidence take a huge toll, undermining her efforts to exert her independence. Nina drops out and moves back home.

After a few more years pass Nina, now approaching thirty, finds a position as a high school English teacher. She is still unsure of herself and her abilities, but as an adult she is more adept at faking confidence she doesn’t feel. Again though, she is thrown off balance in only her first term on the job, experiencing a bewildering and frightening episode with an infatuated student who lacks boundaries. Eventually, Nina quits teaching and finds herself adrift, living with her parents, using online dating apps, blogging about life and love. Her story comes full circle when she receives devastating news about Amy and feels nothing: “To be honest, I’m too far removed from Amy now to feel actual grief. This person who was once the most vivid part of my daily life is now just a social media afterthought. The punchline to a dark joke whose opening I can’t recall.”

Nina’s journey through the world is anything but smooth. She makes poor choices. She encounters setbacks and struggles to believe in herself. But her story of endurance and survival is authentic and honest. The Most Precious Substance on Earth is a moving and memorable work of fiction from an author worth watching. Shashi Bhat writes with a light touch, but her novel is weighty with hard truths.

SHASHI BHAT is the author of the novels The Family Took Shape, a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and, most recently, The Most Precious Substance on Earth, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction. Her fiction has won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her stories have appeared in such publications as The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Best Canadian Stories, and The Journey Prize Stories. Shashi holds an MFA in fiction from the Johns Hopkins University. After living in several cities, including Halifax, Shashi now lives in New Westminster, B.C., where she is the editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ McClelland & Stewart (Aug. 24 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0771094965
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0771094965

Ian Colford

Website

Ian Colford’s short fiction has appeared in many literary publications, in print and online. His work has been shortlisted for the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Journey Prize, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and others. His latest novel, The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard, was the winner of the 2022 Guernica Prize and was published by Guernica Editions in 2023. He lives in Halifax.