Addicted to Love

By Tom Mathews

Relationships often hit a road block when two lovers with differing backgrounds of race and faith lose their initial fervor of love and face the hard realities of married life. It is further complicated by parents who interfere with their forgiving flow of love for each other, by demand of strict adherence to their religious beliefs and practices.
This story is based on someone I knew and the tragic developments following
Marias union, though highly fictionalized, is emotionally charged.
No inferences are to be made from one or the others character in the story, based on their racial, ethnic, or religious affiliation.
To many of the new immigrants, America is a promised land where they can realize
their dreams and attain opportunities and financial betterment . However animosity and racial prejudices run rampant among these diverse groups. It seems everyone, at times is guilty of these hateful thoughts, although the degree of their prejudices vary from mild to monstrous.
I am attempting to reflect the foreboding thoughts that creep into the young minds,
when things go wrong which in turn adds fuel to the burning fire of discord in their
married life.
Please remember that realism prevails in the text of this novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503546493

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Tom Mathews.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015902834

ISBN:      Hardcover          978-1-5035-4647-9

                Softcover           978-1-5035-4648-6

                eBook               978-1-5035-4649-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/04/2015

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Contents

Author’s Note about His Novel, ‘Addicted to Love’

Chapter 1 A Mother’s Love

Chapter 2 Newcomers

Chapter 3 Love Is a Lonesome Dove

Chapter 4 Stars and Strives of an American Dream

Chapter 5 Fear of the Unknown

Chapter 6 Pursuing a Dream

Chapter 7 New Turn

Chapter 8 Trekking the Lovers’ Lane

Chapter 9 The Many Shades of Hatred

Chapter 10 A New Chapter in Life

Chapter 11 Maria’s Turn to Face the Music

Chapter 12 While Maria Rejoiced

Chapter 13 Reconnected

Chapter 14 News from Home

Chapter 15 Baby’s Arrival

Chapter 16 Akhtar’s Own Conflicts

Chapter 17 Coming Events Cast

Chapter 18 Like a Rudderless Ship

Chapter 19 Blood Is Thicker

Chapter 20 The Happenings in Lahore

Chapter 21 Severed Relationships

Chapter 22 The Inevitable

Bibliography

Title:     Addicted to Love

Author: Tom Mathews, New Jersey

Cover picture: Sureshkumar, Kerala, India

Publishers: Xlibris

Previous Novels by this author:

English translation of ‘Ramanan’ (Changampuzha)

Mochanavum Mokshavum, autobiographical

Swargathile Katturumbukal, Malayalam novel

Purambokkinte Makkal                "

Niyogam                                             "

Jwala                                                   "

Other English novels:

Devadasi (Gods’ own slave girls) in 2012

Aparna’s Story                                    in 2011

Just Another Day in Paradise      in 2014

Edited 12 souvenirs, including Federation of Kerala

Organizations in North America (Fokana) and World Malayalee Council.

Currently as Chairman, "Global Literary Contest’ organized under

The Malayalee Association of America (MAAM)

Address:     8 Mitchell Road

Parsippany, New Jersey,

07054.

Author’s Note about His Novel,

‘Addicted to Love’

Relationships often hit a road block when two lovers with differing backgrounds of race and faith lose their initial fervor of love and face the hard realities of married life. It is further complicated by parents who interfere with their forgiving flow of love for each other, by demand of strict adherence to their religious beliefs and practices.

This story is based on someone I knew and the tragic developments following Maria’s union, though highly fictionalized, is emotionally charged. No inferences are to be made from one or the other’s character in the story, based on their racial, ethnic, or religious affiliation.

To many of the new immigrants, America is a ‘promised land’ where they can realize their dreams and attain opportunities and financial betterment. However animosity and racial prejudices run rampant among these diverse groups. It seems everyone, at times is guilty of these hateful thoughts, although the degree of their prejudices vary from mild to monstrous.

I am attempting to reflect the foreboding thoughts that creep into the young minds, when things go wrong which in turn adds fuel to the burning fire of discord in their married life.

Please remember that ‘realism prevails’ in the text of this novel.

Tom Mathews

New Jersey

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Addicted to Love’: A love story with a ‘twist’ - A review by Arshad Bethery, Kerala, India

Family ties and cultural bondages often interrupt the free flow of love and understanding between a man and his wife of diverse national origins and up-bringing. To their daily strife and conflicts, the seldom sympathetic parents add merciless overloads and woes to start with.

We have read of such developments in world literature. Such turn of events, often shape people’s destinies. A man’s life’s course is determined often not by his actions alone but by the circumstances in which he lives, any writer knows that well. This distinction, the author conveys to his readership and to the world. Reading this expose, the reader often wonders whether he feels the same about his life as the characters he reads about. In our contemporary culture, where the color of the skin, race, and nationality play a major role, Tom Mathews’ novel sheds light on the ever-increasing complexities of modern life. Finally a man returns to his native customs and traditions, a phenomenon, Tom Mathews portrays through his novel skillfully. Moreover, that is the final portrayal he sketches with his political insight and awareness. Nowhere do you find the novelist engage in excessive verbiage and overdo this scenario, losing his goals. Instead his message is given through the life style the leading man and the woman choose without the writer explicitly saying so.

I say ‘talaq’ to you

I say ‘talaq’ to you

I say ‘talaq’ to you

With these three utterances, Tom Mathews’ novel ends. These three words closed the curtains on the lengthy and troubled lives of two human beings who started out as strangers, then friends, lovers and finally as husband and wife with a darling child born to them. Forgetting all their intimacies, they break up. Long before this tragic ending, they forsake the love they felt for each other in the face of opposition interfering in their lives from start. They both try to forget it conveniently. Their own heritages, their diverse languages, or their cultural ties did not keep them apart in the beginning. To Akhtar, a Pakistani and Maria, a Spanish girl, love between them was paramount. Maria’s mother, Sophy had migrated to America and Maria grew up in New York. Maria loses her father. Her mother marries another man and Maria becomes a ‘lost’ child. Despite this, Maria tries to improve her lot by obtaining employment and a meaningful life, when she meets the Pakistani car repairman. They fall in love and get married. This makes up for the maternal love she lost from Sophy. While discussing Sophy’s ‘ups and downs’ in life Tom Mathews momentarily side-steps from Akhtar-Maria’s lives. A prominent writer of modern times, Orhan Pamuk has clearly stated that a novelist should take care of readers’ interest, while dwelling on sub-plots yet maintaing the main link. This wonderful writer, Pamuk has stated clearly that when a novelist deviates from the main story, the readership loses interest in the story and the continuity is broken, we complain. There may be other reasons, Pakuk claims. That is inevitable, he states. In this novel’s main characters of Akhtar-Maria’s lives, Sophy’s side-line story is not a distraction. This aspect, however, blends itself in the main story. The stronger issue is the ‘politics’, as indicated earlier, is a modern man’s return to his roots. Neither religious allegiances nor their own family connections mattered in their pursuit of love’s sweet moments and the birth of their child, Jasmine. The constant calls from Akhtar’s father in Pakistan regarding financial troubles he is having, pressures Akhar to return to his home-land. As a result Maria and Jasmine are isolated. Maria breaks down mentally. Life’s ever demanding claims make her a ‘lost soul’. Akhtar goes back to his ‘blood’ relatives and his old life-style. Even though he returns to America for a while, his life becomes very ‘mechanical’

This novel deals with a modern man who nurtures his earlier childhood days and his passion for his cultural ties which in the end return him emotionally to the land of his birth. The triple ‘talaq’ gives him the magic wand with which he dismisses his life so far. The realistic story of Addicted to Love’ opens up new avenues for us to travel and the very stark truth of how the influence of language and culture vanish in front of love but return ever-so strongly when the couple splits up. Suddenly Akhtar returns to his identity as a Pakistani and Maria as a Spanish girl. This is a modern man’s fatal mishap at his ‘victory’ parade. In this respect, this novel deserves diligent perusal and in today’s world all these tragedies occur without any significant warning. Like Shakespeare said, coming events cast their shadows before’ to those who heed.

(Freely translated from a Malayalam write-up by Arshad Bethery, Kerala, India)

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Dedicated

To the loving memory of my father,

Purackal M. Mathew, Tiruvella, India

(English teacher in High School in Kerala)

Who instilled in me the love for creative writing

The author.

In appreciation of a child artist.

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Five-year old Cameron’s artistic Impression of the pulpit of her uncle, Rev. Tom Mathews’ Church in Philipsburg, New Jersey

(Cameron is my granddaughter.)

-The author.

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The pulpit of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Philipsburg, New Jersey by Cameron Miller, aged 5.

Chapter 1

A Mother’s Love

It was a hard winter morning. A brisk cold wind lashed at the window pane with a