This story focuses on one of India's new "industries" - providing surrogate mothers for Westerners. Simran Singh is a social worker, who is connected with a new facility providing these services. She's torn between understanding the overwhelming need of childless couples to be parents, the relief from poverty that payment to surrogates can bring to their families in India against the exploitation of the women and ruthlessness of the organisations that use them.
When a girl is born, in the clinic, and subsequently diagnosed with HIV, Simran's suspicions increase and she turns detective and the baby's parents are reported dead whilst on a short holiday. Travelling to London to try to trace the baby's relatives, she begins to learn more than she bargained for.
Part morality tale, part detective story, this tale spans the world, showing how far the impact of this industry spreads with little publicity, fewer safeguards than might be imagined and with deeply emotional consequences. Approve or not, this fictionalised version tells us that this trade is well established and unlikely to be well controlled any time soon.
I'd have liked to see tighter writing of this story. It just failed to arouse any passionate feelings in me, either one way or another, which I expected when I first began to read. Still, the characters are each mixtures of good and bad, kind and casually cruel, just like real people!
Origins of Love is published by Simon and Shuster, ISBN 978-1-47111-112-8
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