Product Description
Lakshmi, called Lucky, is an unemployed millennial programmer. She likes to dance, have a drink or two, and she makes art on commission. Fifty bucks gets you high-resolution digital images of anything you want (orcs, mermaids, cos-playing couples in sexy boudoir scenes) and a nice frameable print. Lucky's husband, Krishna, is an editor for a greeting card company. Both are secretly gay. They present their conservative Sri Lankan-American families with a heterosexual front, while each dates on the side. When Lucky's grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her mother's home to act as caretaker and unexpectedly reconnects with her childhood best friend and first lover, Nisha. Nisha has agreed to an arranged marriage with a man she doesn't know, but finds herself attracted to her old friend.
The attraction is mutual and Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. But does Nisha really want to be saved? And what does Lucky want, anyway? To live openly means that Lucky would lose most of the community she was born into—a community she loves, an irreplaceable home. Lucky, an outsider no matter what choices she makes, is pushed to the breaking point.
The attraction is mutual and Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. But does Nisha really want to be saved? And what does Lucky want, anyway? To live openly means that Lucky would lose most of the community she was born into—a community she loves, an irreplaceable home. Lucky, an outsider no matter what choices she makes, is pushed to the breaking point.
Reviews/Praise
"I love Lucky, the unforgettable narrator of Marriage of a Thousand Lies. She has taken a place among my favorite misfits in literature, a young woman longing for love and tradition and celebration and family even as she defies expectations and navigates her own paths. I'm especially captivated by the novel's honesty and tenderness-SJ Sindu is an intuitive writer with great insights into the complications of love and friendship." —Timothy Schaffert, author of The Swan Gondola
"SJ Sindu has written an important novel about Sri Lankan immigrant culture. Here, the intersections of migration, sexuality and culture are explored in loving and heartbreaking detail. A book that reveals the secrets of a community caught between East and West." —Nayomi Munaweera, author of Island of a Thousand Mirrors
“What a gorgeous, heartbreaking novel…How Lucky tries to free herself from a life of lies is an incredibly compelling tale.” —Roxane Gay
“Sindu’s heart-wrenching debut novel…incorporates love, loss, family, rebirth and growth to tell a captivating story you won’t be able to put down.” —Ms. Magazine