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In the 10th and penultimate installment of his Continents of
Exile autobiographical series, Mehta (All for Love; Up
at Oxford) deftly turns homebuilding into a metaphor for
other struggles. Seeking acceptance, love, a home and a family,
he evokes their universal nature alongside the unique challenges
of his blindness, which render his achievements particularly poignant.
"I was glad that I was in a position to give my wife and
children some measure of what a sighted husband and a sighted
father might give," he writes near the end of this volume,
with his island home built and his daughters happily installed
in sailing camp. The story begins, though, with the author as
a single urbanite living on a writer's meager income, awed by
wealthy friends who vacation on Maine's island of Islesboro. While
Mehta, a 30-year New Yorker veteran, bristles when people cater
to his blindness, the book shows how his condition makes his project
breathtakingly difficult. While he is adept at navigating Manhattan,
with its myriad sounds, the forested island, accessible only by
boat or plane, defies him from the moment a pilot leaves him alone
on the airstrip and he briefly panics. Mehta's conversation with
himself at this moment captures his social anxiety and the recklessness
with which he overcomes it, themes that run throughout the book.
"I shouldn't have let him fly away just for the sake of giving
Annette [Mehta's friend] the impression that I was every bit the
equal of a seeing person," he tells himself." His candid
self-observation and clear, clean prose make for an engaging read.
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