Sleeping on Jupiter

Anuradha Roy

Hachette India, 256 pages, RS. 499

This new novel by the author of Folded Earth and Atlas of Impossible Longing is set in Jarmuli, a temple town by the sea. Here, among pilgrims, priests and ashrams, three old women on a vacation encounter a girl who is clearly out of place. Over the next five days, the women experience their long-awaited holiday; their temple guide finds ecstasy in forbidden love; and the girl is joined by a photographer battling his demons. As the characters’ lives collide in this narrative about religion, love and violence in the modern world, the full force of the evil beneath the town’s serene surface becomes evident.