Matter Of Time

An absorbing new novel from the author of That Long Silence and Roots and Shadows

When Gopal walks out on her for reasons even he cannot articulate, Sumi returns with their three daughters, Aru, Charu, and Seema, to the shelter of the Big House, where her parents, Kalyani and Shripati, live in a strangely oppressive silence: they have not spoken to each other in the last thirty-five years. As the mystery of this long silence is laid bare, a story that seems to be repeating itself in Sumi’s life…

Set in present-day Karnataka, A Matter of Time explores the intricate relationships within an extended family, encompassing three generations of men and women. At the heart of the novel is eighteen-year-old Aru, struggling to understand her father’s ‘desertion’ and her mother’s ‘indifference’, and in the course of a few turbulent months, forging entirely unexpected relationships that are destined to change the course of her life…

Deeply unsettling, yet with moments of warmth and laughter, this is Shashi Deshpande at her poignant best.