A Guardian and a Thief: Oprah's Book Club
A Novel
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- USD 11.99
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- USD 11.99
Publisher Description
OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE • Megha Majumdar’s electrifying new novel, following her acclaimed New York Times bestseller A Burning, is set in a near-future Kolkata, India in which two families seeking to protect their children must battle each other. A piercing and propulsive tour de force.
“Wondering if there’s a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a run for its money? Here you go.”—Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life
NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, THE ATLANTIC, TIME, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, ELLE, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS, BOOKPAGE
In a near-future Kolkata, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.
Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom. With stunning control and command, Megha Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.
A masterful new work from one of the most exciting voices of her generation.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The fates of two families in near-future Kolkata become indelibly intertwined in this affecting novel about doing what it takes to survive. The world has been ravaged by climate catastrophe: severe droughts, unbearable heat, and food scarcity. Ma has managed to secure highly coveted climate visas to take her young daughter and father to join her scientist husband in Michigan. But as she leaves her job at the shelter—run by the last remaining local billionaire—where she has been skimming food to keep her family fed, she’s followed by a teenage resident who steals her purse containing the passports, leading to a series of escalating catastrophes. Author Megha Majumdar cleverly unravels and reveals the characters’ complicated and nuanced backstories—there’s no clear-cut villain here. Through her use of shifting perspectives, you really get under the skin of both Ma and Boomba the thief. A tale of looking after your own and trying to get by, this electrifying story is stuffed with moral dilemmas and real poignancy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Majumdar (A Burning) spins a luminous story of a family facing climate catastrophe and food scarcity in near-future Kolkata. It revolves around a mother known only as Ma, who manages a shelter between caring for her aging father and two-year-old daughter, Mishti. The three of them have obtained highly coveted "climate visas" and are preparing to join Mishti's father in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he's spent the past six months working as a medical researcher. All is hopeful until the household is visited by a young thief named Boomba, who followed Ma home from the shelter suspecting (correctly) that she is siphoning food from her workplace. The plot thickens when Boomba makes off with the family's passports, causing further complications for all involved. Majumdar conjures a city at once deteriorating and resilient, where markets sell seaweed and synthetic fish, and the city's "remaining benevolent billionaire" lives on a heavily guarded man-made island in a widening river. As Ma and her family struggle to reclaim the passports, Majumdar unspools Boomba's backstory, crafting a complex antagonist who gradually gains the reader's sympathy. There's no clear-cut villain here, just people attempting to survive and protect their own. This proves once again that Majumdar is a master of the moral dilemma. Eric Simonoff, WME.
