Member Review

Adapting Morals

“All Ma needed to do was survive these seven days.”

The opening chapter establishes a desperate countdown for Ma, who has struggled to protect her family from the dire conditions of famine and flooding in Kolkata, India. She holds climate visas that will allow her, along with her two-year-old daughter, Mishti, and her father, Dadu, to join her husband in Dearborn, Michigan. That early statement, though, serves as a stark, foreboding clue that the week ahead will be anything but easy.

For over a decade, Ma had been managing a shelter for the poor, and she felt good about the work she had been doing there. Yet, as conditions worsened, her conscience remained unbothered as she began pilfering eggs, grains, and whatever else she could smuggle out for her family. The poor would always be needy. This was her family she was protecting. Ma was being the guardian.

Boomba is a young man who has been living in Ma’s shelter. He came to Kolkata to find help for his family– his destitute parents and his ailing toddler brother. Boomba has been a screw-up his whole life, accidentally burning down his parents’ house before arriving here. He has one important piece of information, though. He witnessed Ma taking eggs from the shelter and he is sure she has a glut of food stashed away. What good is honesty, he asks himself… “Take what you want, or others will take it.”

Boomba secretly broke into Ma's house one evening, stealing food from her storage room and snatching her purse before leaving. He was thrilled, knowing the money from selling the food would be a significant help to his family. The purse contained a cell phone and electrolyte tablets, but the three navy blue booklets inside were of little interest to him. Passing a garbage heap, Boomba tossed them away, kicking dirt over what turned out to be the precious passports. Boomba was being the thief.

The narrative hinges on moral ambiguity, forcing the question: How far would you go to protect your loved ones? Middle-class Ma exhibits no hesitation in taking what her family requires, and Boomba's questionable actions are similarly motivated by the desire to save his own kin. Even Dadu, Ma's father—a profoundly good man who trusts in the inherent decency of his city's inhabitants— does not hesitate to commit an unthinkable act to ensure his granddaughter is fed. Stunned, I had to reread the passage to ensure I had read it correctly.

In a world weighed down by extreme poverty, climate upheaval, and the struggle for human survival, two-year-old Mishti offers necessary relief. Though Ma's character initially appears cold and unfeeling, her entire existence is clearly devoted to the little girl. This devotion, in turn, illuminates Boomba's character, revealing that his love for his little brother flows from the same deep well.

Author Megha Majumdar has revealed that becoming a mother during the writing of this book significantly altered its focus, zeroing in on the fundamental drive to protect one’s children. It is not a new dilemma here, but in a crisis is there anything you would not do for the ones you truly love, even at the expense of others?

This is a brilliant and necessary novel, centering not just on the looming climate crisis, but on how catastrophic conditions could fundamentally redefine what we are capable of and what we consider moral.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor– and to NetGalley – for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #AGuardianandaThief #NetGalley