Other Waters

Psychiatry resident Maya Das has a white American boyfriend she knows her Indian family will never accept. Living in New York, Maya spends every Thursday night out with her best friend and advocate, Heidi, a glamorous fashion industry insider, and feels the pull of her two worlds that intersect unexpectedly when her beloved grandmother in India dies and a property squabble leads the grandmother’s long-term caregiver to put a curse on Maya’s family. Tragedies ensue: Maya’s father has heart surgery; her mother has a nasal hemorrhage that sends her to the hospital; her sister has a miscarriage; and Maya gets slapped with a malpractice suit. Just when it looks like the worst is over, Maya forbids Scott from accompanying her to a cousin’s wedding in India, and Scott dumps her. In India, Maya confronts her grandmother’s caregiver, demanding she lift the curse. Despite getting rebuffed, Maya feels cleansed by a bath in the Ganges and soon meets an Indian man who would please her parents, complicating Maya’s attempts at finding peace with her dual identity. In fictionalizing a tale already explored in her memoir, North of Ithaka, Gage shifts the action from her native Greece to India. She resists giving Maya easy resolutions to her problems and finds her novel’s heart in the relationship between Maya and Heidi. Agent: Stéphanie Abou, Foundry Literary + Media. (Feb.)