“A gripping, intensely moving portrayal of a woman whose ferocious love for her children ends up clashing with how others expect her to behave. I loved spending time with the rule-breaking Usha and with the complicated world Chital Mehta has conjured. Vivid, fresh, and resonant.”—R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit and The Incendiaries

“Chital Mehta delivers a tender, layered portrait of an Indian family on the brink of unraveling. When their son vanishes without a trace, a mother’s quiet endurance and a father’s relentless pride collide in a search that exposes love, loss, and the unspoken tensions between generations. With warmth, humor, and keen emotional insight, Mehta explores what it means to hold on—and what it takes to finally let go. Lyrical and deeply human, Mehta has arrived as an empathetic and observant voice.”—Kali White VanBaale, author of The Monsters We Make

“A stirring and deeply introspective meditation on family, gender, and maternal love. Chital Mehta writes her characters’ lives with such humanity and care; to read this novel is to be invited into their world, to hurt for them as they falter and fall short, and to wish—at the final page—that you could have just a little more time with them.”—Sheila Sundar, author of Habitations

“At once the story of a disappearance and a meditation on belonging, Chital Mehta’s novel asks what it means to lose someone you love—not only to the shadows of a city, but also to the distances within a family. With prose that lingers on textures of everyday life, Mehta renders the heartbreak and resilience of ordinary people caught between duty, desire, and the silences that shape them.”—Jai Chakrabarti, author of A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness