Review: Gateway of India
Gateway of India by Ken Doyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A delightful collection of short stories, reflecting culture and simple lives around Mumbai (Bombay) in India, that the author Ken Doyle is presumably intimately familiar with. While short, these stories from Ken give a reader a pleasant, fulfilling, view of lives shaped by empathy, compassion, beauty, and, above all, simplicity.
A diligent reader will see a progression in Ken’s skills in the stories in this work. Moving from a story that concludes rather abruptly, to another that is a mite verbose, he concludes this Omnibus edition with a vivid tale filled with interesting characters and a gentle yet complex plot. While a picky editor may find minor flaws in language employed, or with linearity in narrative progression, Ken’s skill in portraying sympathetic characters, in his simple and pleasant stories, is quite advanced.
While I’m not one to regularly read short stories, I found Ken’s stories quite enjoyable, and meaningful, and do recommend them to the young and the veteran reader alike, especially those inclined to learning of other cultures.
