Earthly Playing Field

In this densely packed and lightly speculative debut novel, Singh spins a complex coming-of-political-consciousness narrative. Forty-something Roma, a Punjabi Queens, N.Y., customer relations manager, is “just another liberal arts coward surfing her feed from the sidelines.” After an existential crisis leads her to Sikhism, she’s drawn into a resistance movement countering Western imperialism. Roma’s stepbrother Ranbir, a local leader in this global alliance, gives her a strange, bioengineered plant capable of turning into a portal they can use to attend Resistance gatherings. At one such meeting, Roma encounters Leila, a Tehran revolutionary, and develops a crush. While agonizing over whether Leila might return her feelings, Roma watches in horror as the war in Gaza unfolds. She also connects through the portal with a jinn who turns out to be one of many survivors of a misguided space colonization experiment. Heady and fascinating, if long-winded, debates about theology, revolutionary theory, and the best path forward take up much of the novel, leaving the speculative elements somewhat shortchanged. The abundance of cultural and historical references occasionally become difficult to parse, but it’s obvious Singh knows her stuff. There’s much to chew on here. (May)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misattributed a previous title to the author and misidentified the protagonist’s age.