An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Softcover

Roy, Anuradha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1451608624 ISBN 13: 9781451608625

Publisher: Free Press, 2011

Synopsis

"This is why we read fiction at all" raves the Washington Post Family life meets historical romance in this critically acclaimed, "gorgeous, sweeping novel" (Ms Magazine) about two people who find each other when abandoned by everyone else, marking the signal American debut of an award-winning writer who richly deserves her international acclaim.

On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family lives in solitude in their vast new house. Here, lives intertwine and unravel. A widower struggles with his love for an unmarried cousin. Bakul, a motherless daughter, runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined in a room at the top of the house, a matriarch goes slowly mad; her husband searches for its cause as he shapes and reshapes his garden. As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense closeness matures into something else, and Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. He prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, but his thoughts stay with his home, with Bakul, with all that he has lost--and he knows that he must return.

About this title

Review:

Praise for An Atlas of Impossible Longing:

"Every once in a great while, a novel comes along to remind you why you rummage through shelves in the first place. . . . [A]s you slip into the book's pages, you sense you are entering a singular creation. . . . And then, suddenly, you are swept away. . . . This, you think, is the feeling you had as you read Great Expectations or Sophie's Choice or The Kite Runner. This is why you read fiction at all." --The Washington Post

"Roy's prose does not hit a single wrong note: its restrained beauty sings off the page." --Neel Mukherjee, Time Magazine

"Refreshing. . . . [Roy] defines her characters quickly and skillfully, she has a keen eye for landscape, and she knows how private lives can suggest the larger shape of the public world." --The New York Times

"Set in mid-twentieth-century India, this debut novel spans generations and political upheavals, [chronicling] both the strength of domestic bonds and the wounds that parents and children, and husbands and wives, inflict on each other." --The New Yorker

"Epic. . . . [a] gorgeous, sweeping novel." --Ms Magazine

"Impressive. . . . With her rich imagination, vivid descriptions, and skillful handling of events. . . . Roy weaves a tapestry of family life in India. . . . the story and characters stay with the reader for a long time. Roy is a writer to watch." --The SeattleTimes

"Roy's prose soars with a lyricism that can take your breath away. . . . From her whirlwind opening sentences, readers know they're in for a ride." --Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

"A novel to convince us that boldly drawn sagas with larger-than-life characters are still possible in a relentlessly postmodern world. . . . A sprawling epic of love, class and ambition." --Denver Post

"An incandescently evocative debut novel filled with wrenching tragedy as well as abiding passion." --Booklist

From the Back Cover:

"He scrutinised my palm for long minutes, and I looked with him, as if I had never seen it before. It was creased, untidy, crowded with crosses and wild strokes slashing it in two. I have seen palms that have scarcely any lines. Mine was not one of them, far from it. I waited as if for a verdict.
`A veritable atlas,' he said, his fingers tracing the longer lines on my palm. `What rivers of desire, what mountains of ambition!'
`I wanted to... I mean I was hoping...'
`Want, want, hope, hope,' the astrologer parroted, `this is what your palm says too, moshai, your palm is nothing but an atlas of impossible longings.' He poked my lifeline and said, `Nothing but longing.'"
This is a love story - as passionate as it is poignant - about two people who find each other when abandoned by everyone else.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1451608624
• ISBN 13: 9781451608625
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336