A father who delights in the human body, its mysteries, it passion, and the knowledge that it contains and conceals. A mother who wields the power of her love mercilessly. A sister separated in childhood. An uncle who plays games of life and death as a member of the Bombay underworld. A passionate love affair that tears the family apart. And a young woman left to make sense of the world and of her own sexuality. Shashi Deshpande’s new novel is about the secret lives of men and women who love, hate, plot and debate with an intensity that will absorb every reader. It is a story that begins, conventionally enough, with a woman’s discovery of her father’s diary. As Manjari unlocks the past through its pages, rescuing old memories and recasting events and responses, the present makes its own demands: a rebellious daughter, devious property sharks and a lover who threatens to throw her life out of gear again. The ensuing struggle to reconcile nostalgia with reality and the fire of the body with the desire for companionship races to an unexpected resolution, twisting and turning through complex emotional landscapes. With her uncanny insight into the nature of human relationships and an equally unerring eye for detail. Shashi Despande ventures further than she ever has into the terrain of the mind, teasing out the nuances and exploding the stereotypes of familial bonds.
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