SOURCE: "Tainted by Misery," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4698, April 16, 1993, p. 20.

In the following review of Poet and Dancer, Messud claims that Jhabvala's depiction of New York City is less compelling than her portrayals of India in her previous works, and ultimately regards the novel as a failure for its inability to persuade the reader to care about its tragic characters.

Unlike her past fictional triumphs, such as Heat and Dust or The Householder, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's first novel for six years, Poet and Dancer, is not set amid the beautifully conjured complexities of India. It is, rather, a New York novel, but one in which location is important only in so far as its protagonists—Angel, the poet of the title, and Lara, her cousin, the dancer—refuse to engage with it.

New York appears a disordered place, where "there were Japanese businessmen moving in shoals...