At the outset, the story appears to be some sort of modern times fairy tale. But as the story progresses it comes out that Tilo aka Tilotamata is just one of the characters whose lives populate the landscapes of this very serious but engrossing and entertaining novel.
Tilo the woman with power to use mysterious qualities of the spices and main protagonist not just tells story of her dilemma and desires but acts as a narrator to tell story of Asian lives in America. The stories of people trying to create a new life out of a alien culture which promised so much from far but appears less attractive when seen from near.
Tilo herself torn between her vows taken years ago on a mysterious island before her Guru, the great mistress of spices and her intense desire to beget an American man, uses her mystical power of Spices( and sometimes also metals, earth and stones as she claims at the beginning of the book) to make other people lives less miserable.
Many short stories or story within story with strong charecterisation keep springing up then and now: Story of an Indian family’s shock over marriage of their daughter with a man of another race, story of an Indian woman abandoned by her husband and her struggle to create a new chapter of life sans her husband, story a Pakistani tortured by white supremacist Gang and so on. The stories are quite contemporary .
The story concludes with Tilo losing to her desire.
This is really an example of Magic Realism: Magical narrative with realistic stories.