The prologue opens in 1996 with a scene of Mono, a young Indian writer, visiting her cousin, Abhishek, in Germany. Abhishek holds his mother Alo's diary - the key to Mono's project - untouched since her death over 20 years before. Using the diary, Mono will trace their family's history. Chakravarti helps us with the rest.

"There's insanity in our family, Alo," warns her brother Himu Dada, when another brother, a freedom fighter in pre-independent India, succumbs to severe depression. "It runs in the blood of Vaidic Brahmins of south Bengal... one or two of us go mad in every generation. Our grandmother Radharani Debi lost her mind at the age of twenty and jumped into a well and died when she was only twenty-six."

And so the story is revealed, gradually demystifying the social constructions and roots of this insanity through the deeds and conflicts of the Brahmin family.

It's strange how stories of abuse, pain inflicted, molestation, or incest capture our attention. Critics complain that modern writers are capitalising on these issues, placing them in a Third World context to create a selling point of exotic faraway misery.

The Inheritors is unique in that it deals with these issues without pandering to the 'problems' of such a Third World audience, narrating a genuine and compelling story to well-informed readers. The book openly covers the range of horrors against women of a conservative society/caste without reservation. There's none of that 'we must make our stigmatized culture look good in the western world' attitude directing its exposition.

The writing itself is refreshingly different, though perhaps for some it may prove to be somewhat esoteric and annoying, in that it makes few concessions to the culturally uninformed. It seamlessly uses the vernacular of Bengali Hindu culture, rarely stopping to explain obscure traditions. The novelist seems to be writing to an exclusive audience of South Asians or those in the know.

Among the slew of South Asian writing in English, this one is less explanatory, giving the impression that it is how a South Asian book would be written in its native language, a direct story telling without pause for explanation, one of the most obvious examples being the liberal use of family terms - such as 'Mashi, Pishi, Dada, Boudi'- and Indian culinary delights:

"... She lifted the chapattis, soaked in ghee and smooth as silk, stack by stack and placed them on the plates. Fried brinjal came next, long crusty wedges with the stem attached, of which Shashekhar and the oldest boy got two and the others one each.

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The narrative alternating between different time periods is a reflection on the struggle between personal choice and the limits on that choice imposed by societal traditions. Each generation strives to liberate itself from the deadwood of the past, setting the stage for the age-old conflict between tradition and change. The outcome of this equation forms the course of history.

Though Alo's diary is the vehicle from which the story unravels, the novel does not focus on one particular generation or one hero, but concentrates on the experiences of the Kulin Brahmin women collectively as they are affected by a legacy of conservative, and often oppressive, traditions. The women in the book are the 'inheritors' of that legacy.

This intricate and complex narrative about the lives of a 37-member family, for the most part, is deftly woven by Chakravarti, an academic/translator (this is her first novel. Fortunately, a family tree is provided at the beginning that is vital to following the plot. Though at times it can be confusing, the consistency and layering of events create a very convincingly authentic story.

Manisha Gangopadhyay is on the editorial staff of The Daily Star.