Nayantara Roy's achingly powerful second novel, Sisters of a Halved Heart, maps the complicated emotional terrain between two half-sisters who try to mend their relationship in the wake of a cataclysmic betrayal.
Narrator Mira Guhathakurta, a poetry editor at a well-known literary magazine, has spent five years in London following a calamitous breakup. Returning to New York to rebuild her life, Mira settles tentatively into an apartment in Brooklyn, reconnecting with old friends and her father, gradually (and grudgingly) interacting with her sister, Joy. Younger by eight years, Joy is bold and sharp yet fragile, a corporate lawyer whose sense of self depends on her relationship with Mira and their father. As the sisters circle one another warily, bound together by their lifetime connection and their father's uncertain health, Roy examines the ways in which people hurt, question, support, reassure, and even abandon the ones they love most.
Roy (The Magnificent Ruins) unfolds the story of Mira and Joy's relationship: their blazing love for one another, tempered by the "language of small barbs" that peppers their constant jockeying for position. At the same time, Mira reflects on her relationship with Jack, the college acquaintance she bumped into at a party who became the love of her life, and the ways their relationship sustained her until its sudden, catastrophic ending. Although Joy is often brash and selfish, Mira never manages to hate her sister completely; their lifetime of love, as well as her awareness of Joy's good qualities--her compassion, her intelligence, her courage--is too strong. Their father is delighted to have both his girls back in his orbit but frustrated by their seeming inability to make peace. Though Mira finds herself gradually healing--even dating a new man, to her own surprise--she is still also felled by Joy's betrayal and hollowed out by Jack's absence from her life.
Roy traces the small intimacies of love through weighted moments and shared objects: a borrowed silk coat, a Cat Power song, lamb shanks in cumin gravy, mango pie at Thanksgiving. She gives voice to the shifting layers of family dynamics: adult siblings reverting to childhood roles; people keeping secrets to protect the ones they love; family members learning how to carry on after the unimaginable happens. In the end, Roy's characters achieve both a layered complexity and a certain "hard-won sweetness" to their love. With subtle grace and a fierce, deep compassion for her characters, Roy paints an unforgettable portrait of sisterhood and family. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Nayantara Roy's blazingly honest second novel maps the complicated emotional terrain of two half-sisters trying to rebuild their relationship after a betrayal.