The Flower Boy

Random House, 366 pp., $24.95

Set on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the years preceding and following World War II, when the island was still under British rule and its lush hills were sprinkled with tea plantations, Karen Roberts' first novel is by turns a tale of friendship, love, and the sometimes crushing weight of social constrictions. It is also a quiet examination of British colonialism. Roberts focuses on Glencairn, a tea plantation, and its inhabitants: John Buckwater and his family, the Ceylonese maid and cook Premawathi, and her plucky son, Chandi, who is the true center of the novel and the titular "flower boy" because he picks flowers from Buckwater's garden and sells them for a few rupees so that one day he can go to England. Chandi is Roberts' finest achievement here -- a naive, romantic, hopeful child perfectly captured. But something's lacking in these pages. Even with the exotic setting, the illicit romance between two key characters, and the potential political and social conflicts between the Ceylonese and the English, somehow the novel feels flat and sluggish, almost too quiet for its own good. It's pretty and long on story, but oddly lacking in emotional heft.