First published 2008
In their large house on the edges of a Bengal town, Mukunda and Bakul share a childhood shaped by loss. He is an orphan the family adopted. She is a girl without a mother. They run together through the rooms and gardens while the adults around them wrestle with their own troubles. A widowed man loves his unmarried cousin but cannot act. The family matriarch sits locked in an upstairs room, losing her mind day by day. Her husband tends his garden and searches for answers to her condition. As Mukunda and Bakul mature, their friendship transforms into deeper feelings. The family sends Mukunda away to Calcutta, where he builds a successful life during the chaos following Partition. But distance cannot break the bonds that tie him to the house, to Bakul, and to everything he left behind. He knows he must return to face what he lost.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, adoption, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Bengal, Calcutta
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
320 pages · Paperback · Quercus Publishing Plc