National Network for Equitable Library Service

When Indian American journalist Smita returns to India to write the story of a young widow Meena and the murder of her husband, it's Smita's first time back since her family left when she was a child. Both Smita and Meena were raised in a culture where a woman exercising a basic human right--the right to love and marry whoever she chooses--is met with brutal punishment. While Meena's fate hangs in the balance, Smita must reckon with the privilege that becoming an American has given her, as well as face the trauma that shaped her as a child and led to her family leaving. Dual love stories propel the narrative, as different as the cultures from which they emanate. We follow how Meena fell headfast in love with a person forbidden to her due to his religion and faced the violent consequences of her choice; and Smita's freedom to have a casual love affair and to decide, later, how much it means to her. Moving, perceptive, and heartbreaking, this is a story about two women and what they inspire in each other as they navigate a home where terrible things have occurred, and are allowed to keep occurring, a country that they want, more than anything, to love.