WHEN IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS

When 8-year-old Swara’s maternal grandmother dies during lockdown, she cycles through the stages of grief.

Swara’s grandmother, Pitter Paati, was Swara’s “favorite person in the world.” In fact, when the Indian city of Bengaluru shuts down because of the pandemic, Swara’s primary complaint is that she can no longer visit her beloved relative. Things get even worse when Paati contracts the virus and passes away before Swara gets a chance to properly say goodbye. Convinced that her grandmother wouldn’t leave her so abruptly, Swara decides the adults in her life must be lying to her and that her Paati—who loved detective novels—is merely staging an elaborate mystery that only her protégé, Swara, could ever solve. Shut inside her apartment, Swara searches for clues to Paati’s whereabouts only to stumble onto another mystery as she stares out her window—a mystery that the adults in Swara’s life think she is inventing. Using the tools Paati has given her, Swara slowly comes to terms with her grandmother’s death, all while solving one last puzzle that her Pitter Paati would have loved. At times, the book deftly combines humor and pathos to authentically represent grief through a child’s eyes while simultaneously treating readers to a gripping whodunit. Unfortunately, the third-person narratorial voice often creates an unnecessary distance between readers and the protagonist that detracts from the book’s intimacy and incorporates catchphrases that grow grating from overuse.

An uneven study of pandemic-era loss.