In a fiction debut to rival The God of Small Things, Padma Viswanathan gives us a richly detailed and intimate vision of an India we’ve never seen.

Inspired by her family history, Viswanathan brings us deep inside the private lives of a Brahmin family as the subcontinent moves through 60 years of intense social and political change.

At the novel’s heart is Sivakami, a captivating girl-child married at 10 to an astrologer and village healer who is drawn to her despite his horoscope, which foretells an early death – depending on how the stars align when their children are born. All is safe with their daughter’s birth, but their second child, a son named Vairum, fulfils the prophecy: by 18, the child bride Sivakami is a widow with two young children.

Praise for The Toss of a Lemon

The Toss of a Lemon is a captivating novel that in relating the story of one Indian woman and her family tells the story of a changing society. Precisely and deftly written, constantly interesting, morally serious yet sympathetic – I challenge any reader to start reading this book and give up on it. It joins the company of the great novels on India.

Yann Martel