The Roof Beneath Their Feet

Shree, whose novel Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize, unfolds a dreamlike narrative of the mysterious friendship between two women in an unnamed city in India. Following the death of his aunt Chachcho, Bitva is staying in the apartment where she raised him with her husband, Om Babu, who’s also dead. To Bitva’s chagrin, Chachcho’s closest friend, Lalna, moves into the apartment and sets about rearranging the rooms and sorting through Chachcho’s belongings. In the days that follow, Bitva recollects the deep and unusual connection between Chachcho, a dutiful and obedient wife, and Lalna, who Chachcho took in after her marriage failed. He also remembers speculation among the neighbors that Lalna was his biological mother. Her long-ago affair with Om Babu further clouds the truth of Bitva’s origin. Later sections of the evocative novel are told from Lalna’s perspective and that of an omniscient narrator, further exploring a friendship that defies social expectations and the boundaries of familial kinship, and whose most vivid moments are shared on the rooftop of the apartment complex, where the private lives of the women unfold freely. Readers are in for a treat. (Feb.)