The novel revolves around an Indo-Pakistani family in the 1960s, a decade or so after the Partition from India. They have settled in Karachi and its members are navigating through the 60s in various ways, some questioning their belonging in Pakistan and others questioning the future they’ve been told they should have. As the next generation, the younger generation Rozeena and her friends seek to break the norms of tradition, but their parents and society also hold them to the past, one in which young women get married, have children, remain in the domestic inner world. There is an allusion to a traumatic event in 1964, but it is shrouded in some mystery for most of the novel; it is the catalyst which changes the course of Rozeena and her friend’s lives. The novel toggles forward to 2019 and back to the 1960s, unraveling the story of Rozeena and her friends. as it does. In 2019, the same resistance to social conformity duplicates itself in Zara, a young woman under Rozeena’s care.
Dr JoAnn LoSavio 