FROM ASH TO ASHES

A Punjabi girl and her family reconcile their Indian customs and Sikh faith with their new lives in late-20th-century America.

Mira Singh is grieving a loss too shameful to talk about. Growing up in a mostly White suburb in Long Island after her family left Queens, she was teased for her hairy legs and Indian lunches, but she had memories of a happy childhood and her faith in Guru to anchor her. When her sister, Ritu, falls in love with a Muslim boy and is quickly married off to a fellow Sikh to avoid gossip, Mira starts to see flaws in the customs she never questioned before. Her brother Jazz was mercilessly bullied at school, and her brother Jeet felt the heavy weight of living up to his parents’ expectations at all costs. Mira and her siblings each experiment with activities their parents forbid and struggle to understand against a backdrop of worries about community judgment. It’s not until the Singhs suffer a terrible loss that they are forced to consider each other’s perspectives. Chapters move forward and backward in time, slowly revealing the central mystery in a tantalizing way, ultimately flashing forward to 2018. The writing feels heavy-handed at times, but the book encourages readers to wrestle with questions of parental abuse, individual dreams, personal sacrifice, and religious faith as Mira and her siblings navigate a multitude of challenges.

A complex depiction of a family in turmoil.