A Mirror Made of Rain by Naheed Phiroze Patel

A Mirror Made of Rain by Naheed Phiroze Patel. HarperCollins. Pages 296. Rs 499.

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Mental illness is devastating — for both the patients and those around them. Naheed Phiroze Patel’s ‘A Mirror Made of Rain’ is an intense and poignant novel about the wounds of inherited trauma, “a blistering and unflinching commentary on family, love, pain, addiction and destruction”. A graduate from Columbia University, Patel’s debut novel tells the story of Noomi Wadia, a bright, quick-tempered young woman with a penchant for getting into trouble and who struggles with the fraught relationship she has with her mother. She grows from a lonely, wild-hearted teenager to a troubled adult who finds love but not happiness. Soon, Noomi realises she is trapped in the same cycle of self-destructiveness as her mother. She must battle her impulses or risk losing everything. It portrays with empathy the darkness that addiction and mental illness cast over a family.

Mortuary Tales by Kashif Mashaikh. Westland. Pages 216. Rs 399.

The year 2018 saw ace crime fiction writer S Hussain Zaidi’s Golden Pen and Westland partner to promote crime fiction writing in India. The latest book under this endeavour is ‘Mortuary Tales’ by Kashif Mashaikh that dives into Mumbai’s unsettling underbelly and resurfaces with uncanny stories that cast the city in a seductive, horror-tinged glow. For the past three decades, Jeevanram has worked the night shift at the mortuary of a Mumbai hospital. At the sunset of his career, he is joined by a young apprentice who is clearly uncomfortable when confronted by death and disease. The apprentice is afraid to face his fears; but through the nine dark tales Jeevanram tells him, the young man begins to understand the purpose of life, death, love, loss, guilt and everything in between. Drawing from the narrative patterns of ‘Vikram-Betaal’ and the ‘Arabian Nights’, ‘Mortuary Tales’ is filled with stories of real fear, and the many ghosts that the mind can conjure.

A Kashmiri Century by Khem Lata Wakhlu. HarperCollins. Pages 366. Rs 599.

Over the centuries, Kashmir has undergone cataclysmic social, cultural and religious changes, often tumultuous and violent. This book by Khem Lata Wakhlu, a writer, politician and activist who divides her time between Srinagar and Pune, endeavours to offer a rare glimpse into the lives of Kashmiris — Hindus and Muslims alike — and the ways in which their lives revolved around the simple pleasures of life, even amid all the upheaval. The stories, which Wakhlu has been witness to, provide a glimpse of the Kashmir that her generation and her grandparents and parents grew up in. The all-encompassing view of Kashmiri ethos and culture brings a fresh outlook that is much needed in our times when the churn in Kashmir is going on in full swing. A bilingual writer, Wakhlu was conferred the Jammu and Kashmir Sahitya Akademi award for her book ‘Kashmir Ki Dharti’.