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Some People

by Parini Shroff

A week in the middle of a family fracture

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A week in the middle of a family fracture

After an injury leaves Malti Patel needing supervision at home, her daughter’s estranged husband, Nathan, becomes her reluctant caregiver. With Kavya away at graduate school in India, the two people most closely tied to her are left to reckon with their own roles in a marriage strained by cultural misunderstanding, emotional distance, and painful childhood history. The novel’s seven-day setup brings Malti and Nathan into close quarters as they consider the past they share through Kavya and the possibility of understanding one another. Family responsibility, old wounds, and the difficult work of forgiveness shape this story of a relationship caught between separation and connection.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in family relationships shaped by divorce and intergenerational history.
  • For those drawn to stories about cultural misunderstanding, responsibility, and forgiveness.

Themes

Family and marriageCultural misunderstandingChildhood history and its lasting effectsResponsibility and forgiveness

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A man on the brink of divorce is forced to care for his injured future-ex-mother-in-law in this wise, witty, and heartfelt novel from the bestselling author of The Bandit Queens.

Malti Patel is absolutely fine. Concussed and bruised, maybe, but fine. Certainly fine enough to not need her daughter's soon-to-be-ex-husband, Nathan Whitlock, playing nurse in her home while she recuperates. And yet, that's exactly the quandary in which she finds herself. Her doctor insists on in-home supervision for seven days, and with her daughter, Kavya, abroad at grad school in India, Nathan proves too much of a do-gooder to let Malti rehabilitate alone. Seven days of Nathan, the man divorcing her daughter for all manner of reasons: cultural misunderstanding, emotional walls, simmering hostility...most of them having to do with Kavya's baggage from her childhood.

They want nothing to do with one another. But over the course of the week, as Malti grapples with the shadows of her past and Nathan ponders the wreckage of his marriage, they learn that they are the two people who know Kavya best--and the ones who have hurt her so deeply that she's left them both.

Rich with emotional depth, Some People paints a nuanced portrait of love, forgiveness, and our timeless quest for understanding and acceptance.
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