Smell: A Novel Radhika Jha Soho Press 400 pp. Available from Powell's Books.

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The book opens with the death of Leela's father, a storekeeper in Mombassa, Kenya, in a firebombing attack. Leela's mother divides the now destitute family, sending Leela to live with an aunt and uncle who own an epicerie in Paris, while moving herself and Leela's twin younger brothers to live with another uncle in England. Leela's Uncle Krishenbhai and Aunty Latha are the novel's first quasi-villains; as soon as Leela arrives in Paris, they confiscate her passport. Leela works in her uncle's store, taking over the books and covering for her uncle's adulterous liaisons in the back room. Then she heads home and cooks dinner for Aunty Latha (in the process becoming an accomplished cook), who suffers from mysterious and possibly imaginary ailments and spends most of her days lying around their airless, overheated banlieue apartment, watching Indian movies. Leela is not allowed to go out alone, and her relatives see but one other couple. Their daughter Lotti becomes Leela's only friend. Born and bred in Paris, confident and sophisticated, Lotti takes the time to teach Leela French, shows her around the city, makes her comfortable with the metro, the museums, the shape of daily life in France. It is Lotti who comforts Leela when Leela's mother remarries and makes it plain that there is no room in her life for a grown daughter.

When Leela is thrown out after a blowup -- faulted by her uncle for leaving the store while he needed guarding, Leela tells her Aunty Latha the truth about his indiscretions -- Lotti introduces her to Maeve, a beautiful part-time model and full-time party girl who allows Leela to stay with her for a time. Penniless, and lacking both passport and self-confidence, Leela doesn't view her change in scene as a liberation: "Sudden freedom made me apathetic," she says. Finding only odd jobs, she writes to her mother, begging to be allowed to come to England; she's told to return to her aunt and uncle and beg forgiveness. It is the last time her mother is heard from. Leela passes days on end sitting on the apartment's balcony, watching the crowds below, until Maeve arranges for her to work as an au pair for an acquaintance.

Thus starts what might be considered the strongest part of the book. Leela begins an affair with Bruno Baleine, the father of the house, and cares for his small children. She befriends a few other Parisians -- among them Olivier, a sensitive type who takes her to concerts and plays classical music for her, gently educating her. It's in this section of the book that the titular odor appears.

Leela first notices it while stopping at her favorite patisserie: "A dark feral smell, too strong to be civilized, too powerful to be hidden. A smell so shameless, it belonged to the night or to those private moments of solitude that cannot be shared." A moment later she realizes that the smell is coming from her: "I sat down quickly and draped my sweater over my groin. I had found the source of the smell." She tries to mask it with cleanliness, perfume and soap. Her sexual awareness comes at a price: Bruno desires her for her exotic looks. He will make love to her, but he will never leave his wife. Leela becomes convinced that the Baleines will eventually realize that she smells and dismiss her.

At a party, Leela meets Phillippe Lavalle, the impresario of a chain of food stores, and begins a whirlwind romance, leaving the Baleine household and taking up residence in Phillippe's luxurious apartment. Phillippe finally obtains for her a duplicate of her confiscated passport, and they travel, making passionate love along the way. Leela's keen sense of smell, her sensuality and her discerning taste excite the food entrepreneur, but his success depends on the visual aspects of food, not the olfactory ones. Desperate to keep his attention, Leela invents a sex game in which she describes in minute detail how all the various parts of his body smell. But while their relationship (three years, compressed in a small space in the novel) provides her with material comfort, it does not make her independent. Phillippe leaves her alone for long stretches, and she paces the apartment, feeling sorry for herself. Finally, Phillippe humiliates Leela, admitting to her that he despises smells. "Smell is dirty, unclean, unspoken, that's why it's exciting, erotic, savage, like you," he tells Leela. "You, my sweet, are a little savage. And savages have no morals. That's why you still excite me, after all these years." Unable to hurt him in any other way, she tells him that she has made up all the scents that go along with their sex game. "You have no special smell," she tells him. "I made it all up."

Then he beats her, of course, finally prompting her to leave him. In an American novel, Leela would never look back -- but this is not an American novel. Instead, she leaves only temporarily, expecting Phillippe to miss her and come looking for her. When she tries to see him again, she is rebuffed. Fifteen thousand francs are deposited into a bank account for her, and she is warned that if she does not leave him alone, Phillippe's attorney will revoke her residency permit.

Jobless and alone, Leela tracks down her old friend Olivier, who, after a half hour of wariness, takes her in; it seems he has loved her all along. But what to do for work? Leela falls in with a marketing company and becomes "the fusion food queen of Paris", but it all goes sour again. Suffering a bizarre episode, convinced that she will be forced out of her marketing company because of the smell, she finds herself hiding out in the metro, like the rats who have fascinated her throughout the book. She rescues an itinerant puppeteer from a beating. He gets her story out of her. "You don't smell," he tells her. "It is only your fear talking. You want to think that you smell, because then you do not have to struggle anymore. That way no one else will be able to hurt you, because you have already rejected yourself, you have already thrown away your self-respect."

In a way, the novel is about a girl who lands on her feet despite her own inherent passivity. Is it Jha's desire to go to great lengths to show that Leela is a "good" girl, only doing "bad" things when she is in the wrong hands? Excepting her reunion with Olivier, Leela never makes the first move in a relationship, allowing men to manipulate her; her work papers are obtained for her by men, and she takes jobs proposed to her by men rather than seeking out employment on her own. Women are alien creatures who either like or dislike Leela, but have little to do with her life. Is Leela's passivity intended to show the helplessness of the alien in a hostile society, unable to take things into her own hands? The novel ends on an upbeat note, as Leela turns her feet back towards Olivier, who is waiting for her. "I am going home," she says. But after three hundred pages of angst and insecurity, the two-page resolution feels forced. I wish that I had been able to see her go home, rather than have her tell it to me.

-- Cristen Brooks has edited numerous books for publication, and currently works for print management software provider PrintCafe when not practicing her karate.

Soho Press is an independent publisher based in New York City. Since 1987, they've sought to publish literary fiction and quality nonfiction by new writers in America, the U.K., and elsewhere. Their Soho Crime imprint features hardcover and paperback novels featuring foreign settings, local noir and unusual investigators.