My thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this unique and compelling story.  
I was pulled into its web and held there to the very end.  

Ghosh’s writing is, as always, lyrical and descriptive.  The characters travel quite a bit in this story, from America to India to Venice and each locale is vividly portrayed, as if they were characters themselves.   

Our main character, Deen, is a middle-aged seller of antique books (I loved him immediately) who is questioning his life’s purpose and place.  He is visiting relatives in India and happens upon a legend new to him -- that of Gun Island and its shrine, built by Bonduk Sadagar, known throughout the story as The Gun Merchant.  Deen impulsively travels to the site of the shrine and his life is completely changed, in part because of the legend that becomes a parallel narrative to his own life, and in part to the myriad of new friends he makes as a result of this short day-long trip.  The story has a strong element of magical realism, as Deen’s life and that of the Gun Merchant’s shrine become entwined in ways that cannot be mere coincidence.  

Throughout the book, questions of human rights as well as economic and environmental justice all form part of the overall plot development.   The theme of climate change merges with that of migration and refugees (of humans and of other species).  These deep issues, combined with Deen’s own personal search for identity, could easily have overwhelmed the narrative, but Ghosh gives us such a wide cast of interesting and diverse characters that we are never too deep into any one person’s story. The reader accompanies Deen and his new friends on their journey, realizing bit by bit how closely it parallels with that of the legend of The Gun Merchant, told in the early pages of the story.  

The story has a hopeful ending, but I’ll be honest, it didn’t leave me feeling hopeful about humanity.   But it was a most enjoyable and thought provoking read.  I highly recommend it.