Though not written in first person, this is, in many ways, the story of the Eapens as observed by their younger child, Amina. She’s only 11 when she witnesses the extended family fall apart, and a little older when a serious tragedy strikes the family. She observes fragile relationships become more fragile. Her older brother, Akhil, her housewife mother, Kamala, her brain surgeon father, Thomas, are like characters in a play, as Amina watches from the wings, underestimating the power of her own mind. When tragedy strikes the family yet again, Amina is in her teens, watching her parents struggling to cope, and left to her own devices. She emerges some 15 years later as a reserved, under-confident but talented photographer based in Seattle. She’s trying to deal with a professional crisis of her own when her mother, Kamala, shakes her up with some fresh, disturbing news: her father has apparently been talking to his dead mother and other relatives out on the porch in the dead of the night. It’s time for her to make the journey home to Albuquerque, Amina decides, to set things right.