Books: Coming of Age

REMEMBER THE HOUSE (241 pp.)—Santha Rama Rau—Harper ($3).

The intertwining of two processes—the coming of age of a sensitive .girl and the coming of age of an equally sensitive nation—makes a compelling novel. Santha Rama Rau, who writes English (Home to India) with the flourish of conquest, portrays newly freed India through the mind of Indira ("Baba") Goray, daughter (as is Novelist Rau) of a rich and respected Indian politician. The story transpires in Bombay, in the hill country of the north, and among the elaborate Victorian palaces of the Indian rich on the Malabar Hill. Baba and her sophisticated schoolgirl friend...