Marriage of a Thousand Lies
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“What a gorgeous, heartbreaking novel.”—Roxane Gay
A necessary and exciting addition to both the Sri Lankan-American and LGBTQ canons, SJ Sindu's debut novel offers a moving and sharply rendered exploration of friendship, family, love, and loss.
Lucky and her husband, Krishna, are gay. They present an illusion of marital bliss to their conservative Sri Lankan–American families, while each dates on the side. It’s not ideal, but for Lucky, it seems to be working. She goes out dancing, she drinks a bit, she makes ends meet by doing digital art on commission. But when Lucky’s grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her childhood home and unexpectedly reconnects with her former best friend and first lover, Nisha, who is preparing for her own arranged wedding with a man she’s never met.
As the connection between the two women is rekindled, Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. But does Nisha really want to be saved? And after a decade’s worth of lying, can Lucky break free of her own circumstances and build a new life? Is she willing to walk away from all that she values about her parents and community to live in a new truth? As Lucky—an outsider no matter what choices she makes—is pushed to the breaking point, Marriage of a Thousand Lies offers a vivid exploration of a life lived at a complex intersection of race, sexuality, and nationality. The result is a profoundly American debut novel shot through with humor and loss, a story of love, family, and the truths that define us all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An unusual marriage of convenience sets in motion Sindu's perceptive, subtle, and provocative first novel. Lucky, born Lakshmi, is a second-generation Tamil Sri Lankan who grew up in a wealthy suburb of Boston. She meets Indian Kris when he is on a student visa at the college they both attend, where she recognizes him as "the only other South Asian queer on campus." The two realize that marriage will placate parents suspicious of their sexuality, permit Kris to stay in the country, and allow them to conduct their affairs in private. Lucky's life gets complicated when her elderly grandmother is injured in a fall and she has to return to the family home to help care for her. Here, she reunites with her high school lover, Nisha, who is about to enter into an arranged marriage. Sindu's characters, including Lucky's divorced parents, are all believably complicated and compassionately observed, and she anchors the central tension between individuality and ties to family in concrete scenes from Lucky's life, whether she's learning to play rugby with some of Nisha's friends or helping Nisha get dressed for her engagement party. The author's quirky sense of humor and matter-of-fact take on a potentially fraught situation keep the tone of the novel deceptively light, resulting in a moving and memorable story.
