Every Happiness

At the outset of Shah’s engrossing debut, 12-year-old Deepa befriends new girl Ruchi at their Bombay Catholic school. Deepa is thought of as ordinary, while the nuns admire Ruchi for her academic promise and determination to become a doctor. As teenagers, she and Deepa experiment with kissing and imagine living together. At 21, Deepa marries Sanjay Jain, a doctor who applies for a work visa in Connecticut. A few years later, Ruchi is arranged to marry Naren Mehta, an engineering grad. The couple follows Deepa to Vernon, Ct., where Deepa has a daughter, Anu, and Ruchi becomes pregnant with her son, Moksh. As their kids grow up, Deepa bonds with the neurodivergent Moksh, whom she recognizes as reserved like herself. Meanwhile, she criticizes Anu’s looks and remains willfully ignorant of the girl’s queer sexuality. Deepa’s family is wealthy thanks to Sanjay’s salary, while Naren’s poor spending habits relegate Ruchi to a life of debt in a dilapidated neighborhood. Deepa helps Ruchi get a job handling the billing for another doctor at Sanjay’s practice, where she discovers that he is engaged in insurance fraud. Bitter and resentful after Deepa begins snubbing her in favor of wealthier friends, Ruchi calls in an anonymous tip that upends their lives. Shah has a talent for teasing out the mysterious nature of desire and the complex bonds of community, family, and friends. This is one to savor. (Feb.)