First published 2016
A car bomb explodes in a Delhi marketplace on a sweltering May afternoon in 1996. The blast kills two Khurana brothers and leaves their friend Mansoor alive but wounded. Mansoor carries both visible scars and invisible trauma from the explosion. He tries studying in America but fails and returns to Delhi, where he meets Ayub, a magnetic young activist who draws him into dangerous territory. The Khurana parents fight through India's legal maze, seeking justice that might ease their unbearable loss. Meanwhile, Shockie, the young Kashmiri who built the bomb, remains connected to that day's violence. The explosion creates a web that binds all these lives together. Mansoor struggles with his physical pain and psychological wounds while searching for meaning. The grieving parents battle bureaucracy and their own despair. Shockie grapples with the consequences of his actions and his dreams of Kashmiri independence. Each character moves through a changed world where the bomb's effects ripple outward, touching everyone it reaches.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, crime, contemporary, 21st-century, india, activism
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Delhi, India, Kashmir
Period: 1996
ebook · Vintage Digital
Content warnings: death, violence