THE WOMAN WHO KNEW GANDHI

Inspired by a line in Gandhi's autobiography, this "what if" story recreates a half-century–long friendship between the celebrated Indian pacifist and an ordinary English housewife. Martha and her husband, Samuel, a retired ironmonger, are idling away their twilight years in the rural English village of Hedge End, confident in their devotion to each other. Then, in 1948, just after Gandhi is assassinated, Martha receives an unlikely letter from his eldest, estranged son, Harilal. Alone and dying of tuberculosis in a Bombay hospital, Harilal has one last wish—he wants to meet the author of decades of secret, intimate correspondence with his father. To ensure Martha's compliance, he threatens to expose the clandestine relationship. Disinclined to yield to his demand—she's never traveled further than the Isle of Wight—Martha confesses the secret to Samuel, insisting it was nothing more than a platonic friendship, begun when Gandhi lodged with her aunt in Portsmouth. However, Martha is ill prepared for her husband and children's reactions, much less the disapproving attention from their Hedge End neighbors (who already find her spry independence unnerving) and the needling media. Post-WWII England and India provide an evocative backdrop as Heller explores the fragile bonds between marriage partners, friends, parents and their children, and breathes realistic life into Gandhi and his improbable paramour. Agent, Irene Moore. (Jan. 7)