A stunning debut novel about a Hindu family's experiences before and after India's partition.

On August 15, 1947, India gained independence from the United Kingdom, and on that same day the country was divided into two separate nations: the mostly Hindu India, and the mostly Muslim Pakistan. The split wasn't pretty; it led to what's widely believed to be one of the largest forced migrations in human history, as Muslims living in India were compelled to leave their homes for Pakistan and Hindus in Pakistan likewise required to relocate. About 15 million people were displaced — sometimes violently — and as many as one million people died of hunger or disease or were murdered during the diaspora. Brutality against women was particularly prevalent, including the systematic kidnapping and rape of somewhere around 100,000 women. It's against this turbulent period in India's history that Melody Razak sets her brilliant debut, Moth.

The book opens in early 1947, where we meet Brahma and Tanisi, a high-caste Hindu couple who live in Delhi with their two daughters, Brahma's widowed mother and their servants. The pair — liberal professors at Delhi University — have agreed against their better judgement to the marriage of their elder daughter, 14-year-old Alma (a match engineered by Brahma's conservative mother Daadee Ma). As they prepare for the wedding and eagerly anticipate India's independence, they gradually become aware of unrest in other parts of the country. The family initially views the instability as something that's happening far away, violence that's temporary and isolated, and something that could never happen in Delhi. As Independence Day approaches, however, it becomes clear they aren't immune, and they eventually become engulfed in the turmoil.

The novel first concentrates on Alma as she contemplates her impending wedding to her 22-year-old fiancé, whom she has met just once. As she plays with her friends and her younger sister Roop, attends classes at the local Catholic school, and learns how to perform household duties to please her future mother-in-law, it quickly becomes clear how unprepared for marriage the girl truly is. Readers also come to know each member in the household in this section, learning, for example, that Brahma is thoughtful but insipid, that one of the servants is a Muslim widow, and that the querulous Daadee Ma loathes the servant because of her faith. Razak's writing is stellar as she develops each of her characters, and the depth with which she imbues them creates a memorable cast.

As partition approaches and the drama ramps up, the narrative transforms from character-driven to action-driven. It's these chapters that make Moth a standout; Razak's prose elicits a visceral reaction in her audience as each character is consumed by events they can't control, and the overall atmosphere of tension is palpable. It's one of the most unforgettable novels on the subject that I've encountered, and I found reading it an intense experience.

My only complaint with Moth is its setup; there are several scenes illustrating Alma's naivete that serve very little purpose and simply slow the narrative pace. In addition, the author chooses to use a question-and-answer format in the opening chapters to educate users on India's political background. While providing this context is likely necessary for some readers, it nevertheless felt clumsily executed.

Given the subject matter, it's not surprising that Moth is filled with episodes of violence. There are graphic descriptions of rapes, beatings and murders, and more sensitive readers may therefore wish to bypass the novel. Those, however, who are looking for a deeper understanding of this terrible era in India's history — one that continues to resonate today — will want to add this book to their lists. Razak's portrayal of the tension and trauma of partition is admirable, and her superb characterization lands the book on my must-read list of 2022. I highly recommend it to most audiences, and book groups will likely find it provides excellent fodder for discussion.

This novel devastated me. And in the most profound and satisfying way. I could not put this book down; despite being a hefty read at 368 pages I devoured it in a weekend. This novel is a serious contender for my Book of The Year.

Razak’s Moth is set in Partition era India and Pakistan, the former mostly. Its events unfold in the year leading up to India’s independence in 1947 and the year directly after it, a violent and terrible time when Muslim Indians and Hindu Indians violated each other’s homes, families, bodies, and holy places of worship. Moth does not shy away from the terror or the brutality of this history; its story is premised on gendered violence, sexual violence, the kind wrought on women and girls before and since Partition.

This is not a novel for the faint of heart. Readers should prepare to feel chilled to their marrows at the cruelty Razak lays bare.

At the same time, Moth is an empowering read. This is a feminist novel. Not only is it told from the perspective of a young girl desperate to become a woman, Alma, it revolves around the actions of the women in her life and in her community. Alma comes from a high caste Brahmin family, a pair of progressive-minded parents who are highly-educated and who view their India as a place of ethnic, class, and caste equality. But Alma is a victim of her own immaturity and her Brahmin, Hindu grandmother’s ambitions and traditionalism. The history of India at this junction of conflict between colonial rule and independence, Hindu and Muslim segregation or peace, traditionalism or modernity plays out in Alma’s family’s words and deeds. The story opens and hinges upon Alma’s wedding to a Brahmin man, much older than herself.

Here is the first of the gendered debates the reader will encounter in this novel. Marriage, in its traditional and modern forms, the domains of power which men and women occupy — according to their familial rank, their class, their caste, they religion — is one of the fascinating, golden threads of this novel. Alma’s mother is unique in her historical time and place: She is a lecturer at a university, she works. Her marriage to Alma’s father is a foil to to the other marriages in the novel where wives are beaten, raped, abused in other myriad ways.

Moth is also compelling for its frank discussions of caste and class. Ethnicity, religion, race, nativism and xenophobia also serve as the fabric on which the patterns of its stories are told. While Moth is a historical fiction, these threads are visible in India today; this is not merely a fiction of the past, but also a commentary on Indian politics and society right now. Moth is truly an intersectional novel, one which weaves history into the present, one whose characters are shaped by their age, their experiences, religion, gender, ethnicity, and caste.

The characters are complex and developed. Even Razak’s villains are soft and vulnerable. In this novel no one is who they seem, even to themselves. The primary cast consists of Alma’s immediate and servile family: Her father whom we meet mostly as Bappu, simply, “father” and her Ma, named Tanisi; her sister, fondly nicknamed, Roop; her paternal grandmother, a matriarch in their home and her dead husband, the ghost of her Alma’s grandfather, a silent but present and poignant character in the events of the novel; their servants, Dilchain, a Hindu woman and Fatima Begum, a Muslim woman.

Religion and culture shape these characters, give them their reasons for compliance and rebellion, motivate them in their actions. Community expectations and subjective desires come into conflict within these characters, in some cases these poles are reconciled or exist in uneasy harmony. Razak places the reader in the midst of palpable, relatable characters who walk us through their lives as if we were there in the room with them. In Razak’s prose we can taste India, envision the hot sun and the colors of its markets and streets, feel the moisture of sweat and floral fragrance on our skin. Razak brings the reader so close to the characters we might detect their bodily scent or feel their eyes on our skin. In the characters’ actions and thoughts we, the readers, can recognize universal needs and motivations: teenage longing, maternal affection, filial piety, desire for belonging and approval — even while we are treated to a view into a world that is not our own, one that is past and gone, an India of long-ago and far-away.

That said, Moth is brilliant in its nuanced portrayal of India and Indian life and culture. It rejects the exoticism that so often plagues Indian literature, colonial and postcolonial alike. Instead its honest portrayal of Indian people and their experiences connect them to others; we may not know anything of the first hand experience of war, but through Moth we get a real feel for what that might look like, feel like, smell like. Razak’s India is a terrible, beautiful place. Its people are inhuman and yet, all the more human for their cruelty. In these pages the reader will encounter suffering, but, also inspiration. I was awed by the strength of the women and men in Moth. I felt hope, even while I cried as a witness to their pain. They were transformed by their experiences, in good and bad ways.

Moth highlights the catalytic effect of history in the most bitter-sweet way. This is a book you will regret and never regret reading.

Hard to believe this is a first novel. Moth would be outstanding in any year. An epic subject told through one family and mainly through the women. I was sorry to have finished it and would love to know the future of characters who are so alive and vital.

I look eagerly forward to the publication date. I have already recommended Moth to all and sundry at my library. The setting of partition era India/Pakistan was extremely compelling. The storytelling was skillful, interesting, and informed. I eagerly followed these courageous, flawed characters as their worlds broke apart. The author does an excellent job incorporating politics, the personal, despair and hope as the old world changes so completely, and Muslim/Hindu/Female/Male roles are forever rocked and reformed.

Five stars hands down. An incredible novel set set during the tumultuous time of partition in India. One of those books you will remember forever - hopefully one of the big Book Clubs (Reese, Jenna?) will pick it up.